Apple enters the augmented reality fray with ARKit for iOS

Apple sung the praises of Pokemon Go as it talked about changes being made to the company’s App Store at today’s WWDC event, but it also showed off a new set of APIs that will allow developers to bring even more augmented reality apps to iOS devices.

This has really been the year of augmented reality for some of the top tech companies. Snap may have led the way with smart filters, but it is no longer the only entrant. Facebook went all-in with its AR Camera platform at F8, while Google continued to show additions to Tango as well as its new AR app Google Lens.

Today, Apple didn’t show off a dedicated app but it did show off ARKit, a platform which the company boasted was the “largest AR platform in the world,” It will assumedly give developers space to track surfaces that they can place digital content on, while allowing users to freely navigate spaces while the content stays anchored.

In a pretty amazing demo, Apple highlighted the marker-less spatial awareness that ARKit has in a tabletop gaming title featuring an airship attack on an enemy outpost.

ARKit has support for Unity, Unreal Engine and Scenekit and will be coming to iPad and iPhone.