What is Augmented Reality (AR) for iOS and why would anyone want to use it? We will talk about some cool AR apps and games for iOS 11 for iPhone and iPad. Augmented reality is often confused with virtual reality, but augmented reality and virtual reality are very different. Virtual reality is a completely digital experience, while augmented reality… combines real reality with digital or virtual reality overlays. One of the most recognizable AR experiences to date is Pokémon Go! You see your real-world surroundings through your phone's camera lens, augmented by the Pokémon you can capture. You can throw your digital Pokeball to catch them all or let it escape. This is an augmented reality experience. For those of you who had the chance to try Google Glass back in the day, it was a great example of a more hands-on AR experience. Digital overlays of maps, photos and videos, time, and more. could be overlaid on top of what you were actually seeing to make everyday tasks a little easier. It was like having robot eyes!

Apple has done a lot to champion augmented reality and make it accessible to the general public via the iPhone. As part of iOS 11, Apple included the ARKit framework, making it easy for developers to create AR experiences, meaning more developers will be working on new experiences like these. Let's take a look at some of the most popular AR apps you can use right now.

Cool AR Apps
Ikea Place is an app that lets you see what new furniture will look like in your home. Edmunds has an app that shows you if the car you're considering will fit in your garage! Modiface Makup lets you virtually try on makeup and purchase directly from the app, and MeasureKit will let you measure something if you can't find a ruler.

Cool AR games
With HoloGrid: Monster Battle, AR monsters will fight in any real-world environment of your choice. In The Machines, you equip a combat robot and wage war from the comfort of your home! World Brush and Paint Space AR will allow you to spray paint art on the world around you. AR Zombie! is a first-person zombie shooter. CS:AR lets you bring a bit of crime solving/escape room to your home, turning it into a crime scene!

AR improvements in the upcoming iOS 12
These are just a few examples of the AR apps and games currently available, but iOS 12 has promised even more AR features. iOS 12 will release ARKit 2, giving developers improved features like improved face tracking, 3D object detection, and shared AR Spaces – meaning you and your friends will be able to see the same thing from your own devices , making the AR table closer to reality than ever before. Apple will also release its own Measure app, which is meant to be a simpler, easier-to-use solution compared to most other measuring apps. Apple even created a new file format called USDZ specifically for AR objects.

It's pretty crazy that all of this is possible with an iPhone. AR truly has the potential to take us to technological levels never before seen in science fiction. Holograms, JARVIS and more are much closer than you think. What would you like to see next in AR? Let us know in the comments.

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