【2023 Archives】

023 Archivesstreets of every major city are about to be overrun by a horde of zombies. No, not the rotting flesh kind, I mean the kind who amble recklessly through the bowels of New York, San Francisco, and LA, heads bowed as they stare into their iPhones.

But this fall there will be a new twist that will ramp up the heedless shuffling that turns multitasking into a walking accident, and it's called ARKit. More specifically, augmented reality apps developed using Apple's ARKit, which will be available when iOS 11 exits beta and hits all users in a couple of months.

If you thought that smartphone-distracted pedestrians bumping into one another, or people walking into intersections while checking their texts was both annoying and dangerous, just wait until people starting trying to engage virtual AR objects with the iPhone in nearly every real location imaginable.

That annoying and perilous selfie taker standing on the edge of that bridge or blocking your way into a store? That's nothing. Just wait. Soon, ARKit-powered AR apps will put pink elephants, dancing puppies, and even volumetrically captured celebrities in every mappable space in the real world. And people will engage these virtual objects with curiosity and passionate interest, whether you're standing in the way or not.

Do you really think you're going to stop someone from taking an AR selfie with Harry Styles in the middle of Times Square, or wherever the app's developers decide to put the geo-fence to draw people to specific AR locations? Nope. You won't. And the celebrity example is just the start. Think Pokémon Gotimes a million -- literally.

It's easy to forget that this time last year, people were getting arrested for going to all lengths to find rare Pokémon Gocreatures in AR, even if it meant trespassing on private property. This kind of AR-driven treasure hunt resulted in masses of users appearing in unlikely locations, clutching their smartphones in the same way the prototypical detective holds a magnifying glass in front of his face as he hunts down clues, oblivious to all around him.

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This is what we're in for with AR on the iPhone, and it will come from major brands selling you snacks, movie studios selling you a story, and even credit card companies trying to influence where and how you spend your cash.

And we'll love it. At first.

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But since the currents of mobile culture still haven't figured out how to stop people from walking blindly into each other while peeking at Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook on our smartphones, there's every reason to think that it will only get worse when it comes to AR, which extends its app influence behind the confines of the screen and into the real world. 



If you think you'll be able to resist, think again.

We're currently seeing the first tremors of just how fascinating ARKit-produced apps will look on the iPhone thanks to various developers posting examples of their AR work. From Tesla cars that look like they're really in your driveway to SpaceX rockets landing in your backyard, the possibilities and amazing sights AR on the iPhone will provide are limitless.

Drones in AR! #ARKit Feels like the real thing 😎👌🏼 pic.twitter.com/WAUzi5S6HJ

— Arcane Reality (@ArcaneRealityVR) July 7, 2017

However, the cost of learning to live next to virtual objects is probably higher than we're anticipating. The only saving grace, for now, is that AR through the iPhone will be far less immersive than those AR glasses Facebook keeps talking about. But whether it's rumors of Apple AR Glasses, or thoughts of a future Snapchat AR version of Spectacles, that deeper level of AR immersion is coming, eventually.

Until then, we're all about to be forced to learn how to make our way through human obstacle courses as nearly every iPhone discovers the wonders of AR in iOS 11 this fall.

Don't say we didn't warn you.