Although Apple released three mobile phone products in one go, the iPhone 8/plus and the iPhone X, as Ear Jun previously believed, in front of the iPhone X, fruit fans will not choose the iPhone 8. The market reacted coldly to the iPhone 8, and in the twelve days since Apple's launch, Apple's market value has gone from $834.9 billion to 783.8 billion Apple stocks on September 24, which fell by more than $50 billion. Statistics show that this is the worst single-week performance in the history of iPhone launches.
From the iPhone 6 to the present iPhone 8, an ID design follows the 4th generation of products, apple paid for its own "laziness". This year's Apple is not good at design, but in the application of black technology, Ear Jun still believes that apple is still full of sincerity this time.
Today we will talk about Apple's AR technology.
Why Apple AR is late
A simple popularization of technology: VR, short for Virtual Reality, translates to virtual reality technology. AR, short for Augmented Reality, translates to augmented reality technology.
As twin brother AR seems to be much later than VR' outlet. VR hardware products and games have long been popular in the first two years, but they have been coldly treated in terms of market efficiency, the reason is that the cost of good VR hardware is too high, and the experience of low-cost hardware products is too poor; on the other hand, VR content is too little, understand the technology does not understand the production, understand the production does not understand the technology.
In fact, AR has a successful case, last July by Nintendo, Pokémon, Niantic launched pokemon Go ("Pokemon Go" was a mess, attracting countless players around the world to the streets, the game even once pulled Nintendo's stock price soared by 25%. Unfortunately, the game relies on Google Maps, so it cannot land in the Chinese market.
The success of Pokemon Go and the tepid VR market made Apple realize that it was better to choose VR than to do AR first. As a result, Apple released ARKit at the Global Developers Conference in June this year. ARKit is the name of Apple's range of software development tools that enable developers to develop augmented reality apps for iOS devices. To put it simply, ARKit is a development tool released by Apple to facilitate game developers to design AR games.
Considering the requirements of hardware configuration, Apple has set the threshold for AR games, and users of iOS devices equipped with Apple's A9 or A10 chips can use ARKit applications, including iPhone 6s, 6s Plus, iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, as well as the just-released iPhone 8 series and iPhone X, including all models of iPad Pro and 9.7-inch iPad released in 2017.
The launch of Apple's ARKit has led to a surge in AR businesses. Vr/AR investment firm Venture Reality Fund released a panorama of AR companies for the second quarter of 2017 in July, and the report shows that a total of 150 companies are currently focused on AR-related fields. At the same time, companies focusing on AR grew 60% in the second quarter compared to the first quarter.
Considering that the current apple app store currently has an average of 150 million downloads per day, there are also 200 million devices that support ARKit. So assuming that only 5% of paid apps use ARKit technology, AR apps on iOS will also generate $170 million a year in revenue. So for the launch of Apple ARKit, for AR companies, it undoubtedly has the significance of breaking a new era.
Of course, Android's support for AR has also begun. Google also recently announced the ARCore software development kit, adding augmented reality capabilities to Android phones, supporting Android 7.0 Nougat and above devices.
Will AR applications catch fire?
As seen at the press conference, Apple showcased some of ARKit's applications in games and software. On September 21, after Apple pushed iOS 11, it also focused on promoting AR games and applications in its APP store, including 16 games and 9 ordinary applications.
Apple's conference has a science fiction war theme of real-time strategy game - "The Machines" is the most eye-catching. The game's producer, Directive Games, made a name for itself in the industry after the launch. Erjun learned that the team was headquartered in Shanghai and tried to contact them, and luckily, we interviewed Mr. Zhang Zhuyun, the producer of this game.
He said: From Apple's launch of ARKit in June to the launch of the conference, the time between the two is very short. Initially, we quickly built a prototype of the game with the resources we had in our hands to validate the overall idea. But interactive mobile games on the 2D plane and AR in the 3D world are completely different dimensions of things, The Machines completely subverts the traditional mobile game gameplay, we can't find a reference from the past, because this is the door to a whole new world. In order to achieve high-quality visual effects and interesting gameplay in the AR environment, all the content and systems must be made for AR, and its development cycle is only 7 weeks. This is the biggest challenge behind this project.
Regarding the characteristics of "The Machines", Zhang Zhuyun believes that The Machines can be said to be one of the earliest RTS games for mass market and using augmented reality technology for interaction, which is a new game interactive experience. Projecting the game's battle scenes into the real world is a very interesting thing in itself. And the player not only interacts with the elements in the game, but also uses the real world space to implement different offensive and defensive tactics. For example, the fog of war in traditional games has been replaced by landforms and buildings in the real thing 3D world, and players need to reconnoiter visual blind spots from time to time to prevent sneak attacks. If you focus too much on a certain part of the battlefield, it is easy for the opponent to exploit the loophole. This makes the fun of offensive and defensive confrontation that cannot be seen in some traditional games a reality.
Unfortunately, "The Machines" has not yet logged into the domestic APP store, and Zhang Zhuyun revealed that The Machines is still negotiating cooperation in China on distribution. Once the release plan is determined, it will meet with domestic players as soon as possible.
For the future of AR, Wang Gang, chairman of Fantasy Technology, is also optimistic, and he believes that the application of AR is very extensive:
Applications that may be the first to succeed should be in the field of gaming, video communication, and some industry applications.
The first is that some AR mobile games will be very popular, which will definitely have Apple's promotion factors, and there are a large number of mobile game companies that urgently need to be transformed and upgraded. At the same time, because the commercialization factor will soon be used in TV programs, network anchors and video production. The industry applications are more optimistic about the education industry (at present, schools have established AR classrooms), the medical industry and the advertising industry. The "virtual person + AR" developed by the fantasy company also has good applications, such as our bank virtual person customer service, virtual teacher, holographic virtual person companionship, virtual person conference and so on.
There is a big difference with VR, VR is to reconstruct a virtual environment, the basis of AR is still the real world, so at this stage the application of AR is easier to implement, relatively easier to connect with the current existing applications. After the VR bubble, the application of AR is more pragmatic, and people's expectations of AR are more rational. The combination of industry and AR has a wider application of VR, and because the requirements for equipment (AR glasses, computers, projections, etc.) are more flexible, the development of AR will be more popular in the initial stage of development.
On the day of Apple's press conference, NetEase Yanxuan quietly launched a new product release trailer for AR glasses on the official website. According to the page, the release time of NetEase's first AR smart product is set for November, which is jointly developed by NetEase Yanxuan and HoloKit, and will involve 6 application scenarios of games, home, children's learning, information, fitting and painting.
Of course, there are also dissenters, and the CEO of a game company admits that the time for AR games has not yet arrived, and the products in the market are just gimmicks, and it is difficult to make money. He believes that he can choose to be an APP for social and life tools.
Indeed, AR applications have the best chance of success is blockbuster games, and for domestic mobile game developers in a red sea, this opportunity may not belong to them due to the existence of giants such as Tencent and NetEase.
Tencent's relationship with Apple this year has been tossed and turned.
In June this year, the famous "Apple tax" incident occurred, Apple included the "tip" in the app into the in-app purchase, according to the apple App Store regulations, in-app purchases, will be levied 30% service fee. After the incident, WeChat canceled the "tipping" function.
On September 1, the technology community circulated photos of Ma Huateng leading Tencent executives to visit Apple's headquarters and take a photo with Cook.
On September 20, Apple announced that it had revised the App Store's review rules and eliminated the "tip" commission. The "Apple Tax" event was abolished.
It can be seen that with the efforts of Tencent, Apple's relationship with the largest domestic "traffic" company seems to have entered a honeymoon period. Tencent, which has made a phenomenon-level game product such as "Glory of the King", is naturally more likely to launch its AR masterpiece through ARKit.
How TO PLAY AR games in the future
In February this year, Ear Jun analyzed why the glory of the king was so hot from ten angles. Eight months have passed, and the influence of King Glory is still increasing, with 300 million registered users, which means that 1 in 5 Chinese is playing King Glory. Terrible terrible.
However, like idol stars, every game has an unpredictable lifespan (as a melon eater, The Ear King really has no intention of getting a hammer). For example, steam data shows that the number of real-time online players of PUBG Battle Royale (also known as "eating chicken") on the PC side has exceeded 1.3 million, surpassing DOTA2 and dominating the sales championship for 27 consecutive weeks.
This means that the glory of the king on the PC side has fallen, and the glory of the king on the mobile phone side will also be the same? We might as well think big:
Will there be a new "eat chicken" game that appears in mobile games in AR mode? Pokemon go mode can't be landed in China for the time being, so can the idea in a video like "Chalk Wars" become the next game scene?
All this can be expected in the future.