Google Ships ARCore 1.0 for Android

Google today announced that ARCore 1.0, its augmented reality platform for Android, is now available in non-preview form.
“Developers can now publish AR apps to the Play Store, and it’s a great time to start building,” Google’s Anuj Gosalia writes. “ARCore works on 100 million Android smartphones, and advanced AR capabilities are available on all of these devices.”
That broad reach explains the “why” of ARCore, which is Google’s second attempt at bringing AR to Android. The first, called Project Tango, required specially-made phones and was never broadly adopted.
But ARCore is already off to a great start: Google says that those 100 million phones are comprised of 13 different phones models, including the Google Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel 2, Pixel 2 XL; Samsung Galaxy S8, S8+, Note8, S7 and S7 edge; LGE V30 and V30+ (with Android O); ASUS Zenfone AR; and OnePlus OnePlus 5. And more are on the way: Samsung, Huawei, LGE, Motorola, ASUS, Xiaomi, HMD/Nokia, ZTE, Sony Mobile, and Vivo have all pledged to support the platform.
ARCore needs all the help it can get: Apple already has a strong lead in this market thanks to the integration of its own AR solution, ARKit, in iOS. As of August 2017, there were almost 400 million ARKit-compatible iOS devices in the world. And that was before Apple shipped the iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and X.
Tagged with AR, augmented reality