Why You Should Be Building AR Apps Now – virohq

Why You Should Be Building AR Apps NowOn Sept 19th, Apple launched ARKit, unleashing a new category of mobile apps and creating a new greenfield for mobile app developers. During Apple’s earnings call last week, Tim Cook announced that there are 1,000 plus AR apps in the App Store already. These AR apps cover a wide range of developers from big companies like the NBA, Amazon and Ikea, to indie game developers and independent hackers.While Apple has not released any download or revenue numbers for ARKit yet; data analytics company, SensorTower, released some finding one month after ARKit’s launch: Games Lead ARKit App Downloads, Which Top 3 Million Since Launch Key Stats:Over 3 million downloads of ARKit appsMobile games have accounted for 53 percent of ARKit-only app downloads and 62 percent of revenue since launchAR games are the single largest category, accounting for 35 percent of ARKit-only apps worldwide. Utilities are in second place with 19 percent of installs followed by Entertainment (11 percent), Education (7 percent), Photo & Video (6 percent) and Lifestyle (5 percent).As more customers upgrade to ARKit enabled devices like iPhone 8 and X, the number of AR users will continue to growth. Tim Cook compared the growth of ARKit apps to the launch of App store overall in 2008. According to Forbes, “that would suggest skyrocketing future growth. The App Store zoomed from 800 apps in its launch year, 2008, to 35,000 just one year later. Now, of course, it has millions, and Apple has paid out over $70 billion to app store publishers over the years.”So while it is still early days for ARKit, there is a lot of opportunity for developers looking to build the next big mobile app. Here are reasons why you should be building for ARKit now:ARKit App PromotionApple has been heavily promoting AR apps in their iOS app store with dedicated categories like “AR Apps We Love” and “Shop with AR” to make discovery of AR apps easy for customers. In a crowded mobile app marketplace, it is rare for these types of opportunities to come around. Rather than competing with the Instagram’s and Snapchat’s of the world for possible promotion, AR apps can get featured prominently in the App Store against a much smaller pool of competitors. AR Features, not AppsIn addition to creating new standalone apps, ARKit gives developers an opportunity to engage users of existing apps with new AR features. Amazon recently added “AR View” in their main mobile shopping app allowing customers to place furniture and other products into the real world. By adding AR View into their existing app, Amazon is able to engage its customer base with helpful new features. If you already have an existing app or work for a company with mobile properties, examine how you can add AR features into those apps to enhance the experience of your users.AR First, Mobile SecondIn the early stages of a new computing platforms, the initial user experiences are often either translations from other platforms (i.e. webpages shrunk to smartphone scale) or simple demos that barely showcase the platform (i.e. flashlight apps). But over time, native design and UX emerges and the dominant experiences are those that best leverage the native platform. Matt Miesnieks wrote a great post on AR design challenges, AR First, Mobile Second, that covers many of these issues.The best way to learn is to build and iterate. While there is a learning curve to AR development, augmented reality is intuitive because it interact with the real world. Once developers understand the distinction between 2D UI (elements on the glass) and 3D UI (elements in the scene), the concepts quickly come together. By building for AR now, you will be on the forefront of this quickly evolving industry.Building early in an industry lifecycle can also give you access to customer insights that can help you iterate faster than your competition. One of the keys to success is to build, test, learn, repeat. Listen to Reid Hoffman interview with Mark Zuckerberg on his podcast Masters of Scale to understand how Facebook got value from building and releasing early.Uniquely ARWhen building your app, consider features and functionality that are unique to AR. Build things that were not possible without ARKit rather than incremental features made slightly better with AR. Experiment by combining AR with other technologies like image recognition, machine learning and location to create new user experiences. Some possibilities to consider:Travel App with AR Portals — consider an app like AirBnB Experiences but one where users can be transported to the experience using AR portals. How to Guides — a note/photo/video overlay application where users can leave instructions for others. This can be for locations (i.e. museums), objects (i.e. cars) or activities (i.e. dancing).AR Lenses — Snapchat has shown us that users love using AR (i.e. dancing hotdog, bitmoji) to add content to the real world when sharing their lives. Create your own Snapchat like Lenses and add them to your app to delight your users.The early growth of ARKit represents a new opportunity for mobile developers to build the next big app. The upcoming release of ARCore for Android will further expand this opportunity. While being early in the lifecycle of an industry does not guarantee success, there are significant advantages available now that will disappear as AR matures. By developing for AR now, you can reap these benefits and establish yourself as an industry leader.Start Building Today!If you are ready to start building your AR app, check out Viro AR, a platform for developers to rapidly create AR applications. The platform is FREE with no limits on distribution. Sign up for an API Key and start developing now!Here are some tutorials to help you get started:How to build an interactive AR app in 5 minsHow to build AR portals in 5 minsAdd Snapchat-like AR Lenses to any app
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Ir a la fuente / Author: Danny Moon