Although fewer people are as excited to play Pokémon GO today as when the game first launched last Summer, it still stands as one of the world’s most popular mobile games.
A new Pokémon GO companion app called Pocketdex is now available on the App Store, and was created with love by two prominent members of the jailbreak community: iOS developer Majd Alfhaily and graphic designer Surenix.
If the augmented reality (AR) tape measure app we recently featured has gotten you excited for the possibilities that Apple's ARKit framework brings to developers, you're wholeheartedly recommended to watch this video demonstration of an upcoming ARKit-driven app that will let you take precise room measurement by pointing your iPhone's camera at the corners.
The app will help generate 3D models and automatically calculate the footage for the user. It's a really cool-looking demo and I can't wait to try this app out when it releases.
Watch the demonstration video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iw9MPZoPqCQ
The app was created by a company called Smart Pictures, which provides the Measurement Cloud system that enables dimensioning intelligence for the interior world.
Here's a recent ARKit-powered tape measure demo that set the Internet on fire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7DYC_zbZCM
This level of precision is made possible by ARKit's accurate plane detection and reliable object tracking. On existing devices, the ARKit framework leverages data from on-board sensors and uses computer vision algorithms constantly analyzing live camera feed.
ARKit-driven apps should be even better on iPhone 8 because Apple's OLED iPhone is said to feature a dedicated 3D laser sensor on both its front and back for even better augmented reality features and faster, more precise autofocus.
Instagram today announced that users of its popular photo-sharing service can now reply to Stories from people they follow with photos and videos. “From selfies to Boomerangs, now you can be even more fun and playful when you respond to friends,” said the company.
The new feature requires Instagram version 10.28 for iOS.
To reply to a Story with a photo or a video, hit the new camera button that appears while you're watching a Story. If you don't see the icon, the feature has not launched yet in your country.
Like with regular posts, you can pretty up your reply using Instagram's creative tools, allowing you to use face filters, stickers and the Rewind feature. “Replies also include a sticker of the Story that you can move around and resize,” said Instagram.
You'll get a message via Direct when someone replies to your Story with a photo or a video.
You can tap the message to view the reply and also see a sticker of the original story that’s only visible to you. As with disappearing media in Direct, your friends will know when you’ve taken a screenshot (Android only) or replayed a reply.
To learn more about these new features, be sure to check out Instagram's Help Center.
Instagram for iPhone and iPad is available free from App Store.
Apple's ARKit framework is slowly but surely emerging as one of the best new features in iOS 11. Many developers have built everything from virtual tape measures and Minecraft to ballerinas made out of wood dancing on floors. It's remarkable that most of the ARKit demos we've seen so far were built in a matter of hours or days, not weeks or months.
Today, we want to highlight a few additional ARKit demos that we've curated. These videos highlight ARKit's incredibly reliable and accurate tracking features that don't require any special hardware beyond the sensors and the camera already present in your iPhone or iPad.
First up, we have this demo showing jumping between different planes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj3PbRTgpQk
ARKit automatically detects horizontal surfaces, called planes, such as tables and floors, and can track and place objects on smaller feature points as well. This is all handled automatically, with uncanny precision, using only data from your iOS device's camera and sensors.
The following pair of videos demonstrate a virtual character interacting with the environment by autonomously jumping a flight of stairs and between different surfaces of the real world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vozrtqe7MZY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7REJj_bN-c
Interactions between virtual objects and real people are easy as a pie with ARKit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdAqD4uIbX0
The Tracking Monster demo, seen below, uses ARKit and the Unity engine to track a monster with the dynamically updated shadows based on changing lighting conditions in the real world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IYT-OCWqDg
Maze games will never be the same!
Speaking of games, here's Tic-Tac-Tio in augmented reality, developed By Bjarne Lundgren.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBBq473vuMo
And last but not least, Mixed Reality Design posted the following example of an augmented reality app depicting an alien vessel hovering ominously above a construction site.
Hollywood will soon invade your smartglasses airspace → fact https://t.co/jLYm1YcBW2 pic.twitter.com/to2qqfFIVr
— Mixed Reality Design (@MixedrealityD) July 4, 2017
Head over to the Mixed Reality Design's Twitter account for more AR examples like this.
While it's not entirely clear that this particular demo uses ARKit, it does highlight the possibilities for AR movie trailers that could be coming soon to your phone.
Be sure to check out other interesting ARKit apps and demos, including an upcoming furniture-ordering app from Ikea, a measuring tape that blew up on the web, an ARKit-powered VR mode in Maps, an inter-dimensional portal and much more.
“I think there is a gigantic runway that we have here with the iPhone and the iPad,” Apple executive Greg Joswiak said of ARKit in a recent interview with The Australian. “The fact we have a billion of these devices out there is quite an opportunity for developers.”
How do you like these ARKit demos? Which one is your favorite, and why? Chime in with your thoughts and observations in the comments section below.
Learn how to move several apps between Home Screen pages on your iPhone or iPad at once or add them all to a folder in one fell swoop, saving you time.
Instagram during the weekend launched stickers in its mobile app for iPhone and iPad which are dedicated to the 4th of July holiday and Canada Day celebrations across North America.
Instagram users in the United States can celebrate Independence Day by posting a Story adorned with one of the stickers in the app's new star-spangled sticker pack, ranging from backyard BBQs to fireworks at night.
Canadians get a sticker to celebrate Canada Day, available in both English and French.
The sticker was designed by Jenn Kitagawa, a multidisciplinary artist and illustrator who grew up in the prairies of Alberta and currently lives in Toronto.
Instagram is available at no charge on App Store.
Following the iOS 11 public beta release, Apple has reminded developers that iOS 11 will be 64-bit only. The notice posted yesterday on Apple's Dev Center cautions that all 32-bit apps previously installed on users’ devices will not launch after they upgrade to iOS 11.
“As a reminder, new iOS apps and updates submitted to the App Store must support 64-bit,” reads the notice. Apple recommends that developers who haven’t updated their apps to support 64-bit submit an update “so your users can continue to run your apps on iOS 11”.
TUTORIAL: How to identify 32-bit apps installed on your iPhone and iPad
Because iOS 11 is 64-bit only and doesn't support legacy 32-bit apps, users should experience a bit faster performance and fewer crashes. That's because iOS 11 will never need to load 32-bit frameworks, libraries and the kernel alongside their 64-bit counterparts needed to support legacy apps, which effectively strains the RAM and other resources.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hoPcMPvL88
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Apple’s Clips app already requires a 64-bit iOS device and iOS 11's new Files app is optimized for 64-bit computing, too. Starting with iOS 10.3, Apple began naming and shaming legacy apps via a new App Compatibility section in Settings → General → About → Applications.
The new advisory regarding 32-bit apps was posted just a day after the company invited developers to update their product pages on App Store for iOS 11's much-improved, thoroughly redesigned App Store.
iOS 11 will be in the hands of “hundreds of millions of customers” this fall.
Instagram today announced some much-needed new tools to help users of its mobile app enjoy the service without toxic comments and spam. One is a new filter designed to block certain offensive comments and the other is basically a spam filter supporting nine languages.
Instagram claims that the pair of newly announced tools at their users' disposal will help keep the service a safe place for self-expression and inclusive communities.
Clamping down on toxic comments is now easier with the comment filter that automatically blocks certain offensive comments on your published posts, as well as in live video.
The new offensive comment filter is in addition to Instagram's existing arsenal of tools, like comment reporting, account blocking and so forth. To access this automatic filter, tap Instagram's “...” menu from your profile, then tap the new Comments option.
“We’ll launch this comment filter in English first, but will offer it in more languages over time,” notes the Facebook-owned company. The filter is optional and can be turned off at any time.
To help fight spam, Instagram is rolling out another new filter. Powered by machine learning, it looks for any obvious spam in comments and blocks it from your posts and live videos.
According to Instagram:
Our team has been training our systems for some time to recognize certain types of offensive and spammy comments so you never have to see them. The tools will improve over time, enabling the community’s experience of sharing to improve as well. We hope to make these filters available in more languages as our algorithms improve.
At launch, this dedicated filter will remove spam written in a total of nine languages—English, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, French, German, Russian, Japanese and Chinese—with additional language support to be implemented in the future.
Instagram is available free of charge via App Store.
One of the best aspects of ARKit, Apple's new framework for building augmented reality apps, is the fact that it does all the incredibly complex heavy lifting like detecting room dimensions, horizontal planes and light sources, freeing up developers to focus on other things.
ARKit analyzes the scene presented by the camera view, in real time.
Combined with sensor data, it is able to detect horizontal planes, such as tables and floors, as well as track and place objects on smaller feature points with great precision.
And because it uses the camera sensor, ARKit can accurately estimate the total amount of light available in a scene to apply the correct amount of lighting to virtual objects.
First, check out this demo from Tomás Garcia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G2YbQuQHps
Children's bedtime stories will never be the same come this fall!
Another developer has put together a quick demo showing off his AI bot, named “Pepper”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brFKo_tSkw8
According to the video's description:
I've been working on an AI bot for a while now. To be short, it's like V.I.K.I in the movie “I, Robot”. With the help of ARKit, I was able to bring it close to a real life assistant.
Due to obvious reasons, I'm not demonstrating her functionality in this video. So I ended up showing you guys how easy and simple it is to bring 3D models to life with Apple's new framework.
These videos clearly demonstrate how easy ARKit makes it for developers to match the shadows of their virtual objects to lighting conditions in the real world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQt96saECfM
Here are some additional ARKit-enabled demos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o7qr1NpeNI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJR_f7XCuvA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQt96saECfM
ARKit requires A9 or A10 processors, meaning ARKit apps will require an iPhone 6s or newer or one of the latest iPad Pro models, either the 9.7-inch or the 10.5-inch one.
If anything, these videos demonstrate just how easy Apple has made it to put together an AR app. Are you looking forward to ARKit, and why? Leave a comment below to let us know.
As part of celebrating its two billion monthly active users milestone, Facebook on Monday unveiled new video chat features for its mobile Messenger app, such as the beautifully animated reactions, interactive filters, masks and effects. “Video chats with your friends and family in Messenger just got a whole lot more fun,” said the firm.
You can use these new video features in one-on-one video calls, as well as in your group video conversations. The new capabilities let you easily share your emotions during a video call with one of the five Facebook reactions, alter your appearance (how about making your friend laugh with a bear mask?) by taking advantage of the many built-in filters and much more.
I like how reactions animate onto the screen and then disappear.
Many reactions have different versions, depending on whether your face is on or off the screen. For instance, tap the love reaction when the camera is facing you, then tap it again when the camera is facing outward to see the difference.
A variety of in-call filters are now available to Messenger users, ranging from subtle lighting tweaks to color changes, like black and white, red or yellow. Each one has a live preview so you can test it on yourself before letting others see it. Many new masks are available for video calls, too, including some with hidden effects that react to your facial movements.
From the Facebook blog:
We have also added animated effects, like falling hearts and twinkling stars, to give your video chats expressive flair. Check out what happens when you wave your arm in front of the camera while using one of those effects! Unlike reactions, masks and effects stay on the screen for the duration of the video chat (or until you take them off or switch to another one).
One of the best new in-call video features is the screenshotting ability.
During an one-on-one or group video call with one or more friends, tap the camera icon at the bottom to take a screenshot of your time together and share it with other friends via Messenger Day or other social media accounts
The image of your video conversation will be saved to your iPhone's Camera roll. Plus, you can quickly send the screenshot to the person or group that you’re video chatting with.
Check out the new Messenger video features in Facebook's video embedded below.
Earlier today, Microsoft started rolling out a much redesigned Skype for iPhone with a Snapchat-like Stories feature, dubbed Highlights.
Moreover, Skype for iPhone now lets you talk to Cortana and other chat bots, as well as post message and in-call reactions by adding huge emoticons, live text and photos with drawings to an overlay that appears on top of the call.
Facebook Messenger is available free on App Store.
Following a preview at the start of June, Microsoft today began rolling out a redesigned Skype for iPhone app with a refined user interface and new capabilities such as chat bots, a Snapchat-like Highlights feature, message and in-call reactions, easier photo capture and more.
Aside from Microsoft's own smart assistant Cortana, other chat bots now available or coming soon to Skype for iPhone include Gfycat, Giphy, MSN Weather, Bing, Polls, Expedia, Stubhub, BigOven, YouTube and Upworthy.
With in-call reactions, users can add live emoticons, live text and even real-time photos to an overlay that appears on their video and voice calls. Similarly, message reactions let you inform your chat participants how you feel by adding expressive reactions to your chats.
The new Home screen launches with your chat view, but you can now swipe left to get to the Skype camera or swipe right to show your Highlights. Speaking of which, Highlights is a new Snapchat-like feature that lets you share your day-to-day with friends and family on Skype while keeping up with what they are up to.
Your highlight is basically a collection of photos and videos that you can decorate with emojis and text. Only people who follow you on Skype can see your highlights.
You can also respond to others' highlights by reacting with emoticons or even use them as a conversation starter. Unlike Snapchat, your published highlights remain live for a full week.
It remains to be seen if Highlights gains any traction given that every major chat app now has a similar feature of its own. Between Snapchat Stories, Facebook and Instagram Stories, I'm not sure I have the time to update Skype Highlights for my contacts on a daily basis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qItfRVJFljM
Microsoft readily admits that Highlights is a Snapchat clone.
“There’s a new medium that has risen,” Amritansh Raghav, Corporate Vice President of Skype, said recently of Stories in a comment to TechCrunch. “When you think about this new way of interacting, we want that to be available also in this app.”
The new features are available in Skype for iPhone, but not in Skype for iPad. Skype for Mac and Windows computers will receive the new capabilities within the next few months.
According to Microsoft, a future version of Skype will integrate gaming features into video calls and users will have the ability to synchronize and watch streaming videos together.
Visit skype.com/new to learn more about the app's latest feature additions.
Skype for iPhone and Skype for iPad are available free on App Store.
Cloud storage provider Dropbox today updated its app on App Store with the ability to edit text files right from the mobile app. Now when you browse the files in your Dropbox, simply view any text file then tap a new Edit icon to enter the app's new built-in text editor.
When done editing, tap Save to save the changes directly to the text file in your Dropbox. No more emailing the file back and forth. The bast part is, no longer do you need to use a third-party editor just to make a few quick changes to a text file saved in your Dropbox.
Aside from the built-in text editor, Dropbox for iOS version 54.2 has gained a new auto-capture function. When scanning documents, simply focus on the document and this feature will take a picture automatically.
Dropbox for iOS is a free download via App Store.