Apple Marketing Lead Greg Joswiak Talks ARKit in New Interview

Apple's vice president of product marketing Greg Joswiak this week sat down for an interview with The Australian, where he spoke about the company's augmented reality efforts, including ARKit and the response that its gotten from developers so far.

Enthusiasm about ARKit has been "unbelievable" says Joswiak, who went on to describe some of the things developers have built so far, including virtual tape measures that can accurately measure real-world objects. "It's absolutely incredible what people are doing in so little time," he said. Joswiak declined to speak about Apple's future AR plans, but said the company is going to "start at zero" with the iPhone and the iPad.

Apple was not talking about any plan to build AR glasses or a headset, but would instead promote its use on the iPhone and iPad, he said. "I think there is a gigantic runway that we have here with the iPhone and the iPad. The fact we have a billion of these devices out there is quite an opportunity for developers.

"Who knows the kind of things coming down the road, but whatever those things are, we're going to start at zero."

Joswiak also spoke about HomeKit, where he said he expects "plenty" of compatible HomeKit devices to be in homes in Australia before the HomePod speaker launches in December, and he highlighted both the new Siri voices in iOS 11 and Apple's work on machine learning. Apple has been using machine learning techniques since 2007, when the original iPhone launched. "We used machine learning to learn what you typed back in 2007," he said.

Machine learning, ARKit, and artificial intelligence play a major role in iOS 11. With ARKit, developers are able to quickly and easily build augmented reality experiences into their apps and games. When it launches this fall, ARKit will be the largest AR platform in the world, thanks to the myriad iPhones and iPads that are out on the market.

Related Forum: iOS 11

Popular Stories

iPhone SE 4 Vertical Camera Feature

iPhone SE 4 Production Will Reportedly Begin Ramping Up in October

Tuesday July 23, 2024 2:00 pm PDT by
Following nearly two years of rumors about a fourth-generation iPhone SE, The Information today reported that Apple suppliers are finally planning to begin ramping up mass production of the device in October of this year. If accurate, that timeframe would mean that the next iPhone SE would not be announced alongside the iPhone 16 series in September, as expected. Instead, the report...
iPhone 17 Plus Feature

iPhone 17 Lineup Specs Detail Display Upgrade and New High-End Model

Monday July 22, 2024 4:33 am PDT by
Key details about the overall specifications of the iPhone 17 lineup have been shared by the leaker known as "Ice Universe," clarifying several important aspects of next year's devices. Reports in recent months have converged in agreement that Apple will discontinue the "Plus" iPhone model in 2025 while introducing an all-new iPhone 17 "Slim" model as an even more high-end option sitting...
Generic iPhone 17 Feature With Full Width Dynamic Island

Kuo: Ultra-Thin iPhone 17 to Feature A19 Chip, Single Rear Camera, Semi-Titanium Frame, and More

Wednesday July 24, 2024 9:06 am PDT by
Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo today shared alleged specifications for a new ultra-thin iPhone 17 model rumored to launch next year. Kuo expects the device to be equipped with a 6.6-inch display with a current-size Dynamic Island, a standard A19 chip rather than an A19 Pro chip, a single rear camera, and an Apple-designed 5G chip. He also expects the device to have a...
iPhone 16 Pro Sizes Feature

iPhone 16 Series Is Less Than Two Months Away: Everything We Know

Thursday July 25, 2024 5:43 am PDT by
Apple typically releases its new iPhone series around mid-September, which means we are about two months out from the launch of the iPhone 16. Like the iPhone 15 series, this year's lineup is expected to stick with four models – iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max – although there are plenty of design differences and new features to take into account. To bring ...
icloud private relay outage

iCloud Private Relay Experiencing Outage

Thursday July 25, 2024 3:18 pm PDT by
Apple’s iCloud Private Relay service is down for some users, according to Apple’s System Status page. Apple says that the iCloud Private Relay service may be slow or unavailable. The outage started at 2:34 p.m. Eastern Time, but it does not appear to be affecting all iCloud users. Some impacted users are unable to browse the web without turning iCloud Private Relay off, while others are...

Top Rated Comments

Zirel Avatar
92 months ago
While VR is easy, just dump a faster, more powerful graphics card, AR is very complicated, because you can’t solve it just by catching the silicon drift.

Apple has, by far, the best AR until now, and it has it ready to be literally in the hands of 100’s of millions of consumers right when iOS 11 launches. They have won the game, and Google and Microsoft have a lot to catch up...

Also, they own PrimeSense, the real engineers behind "Google" Project Tango...
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
44267547 Avatar
92 months ago
I think AR-Kit is interesting in its infancy with mapping objects on to a surface. But that's just the start and how it will Expand with iOS devices. Once it expands more into the gaming era With the iPad or how someone could potentially stage their home with virtual furniture to see what it would resemble Before purchasing is clever.

I can only imagine how this will expand in its capabilities in two/three years time from where it is now.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
zapm Avatar
92 months ago
So instead of being hands free, moving your head around in free-space.
Then with the aid of hand controllers being able to interact with virtual objects.

You have to stand there, looking at a small screen, whilst using both hands to hold it in front of your face.

You sure Apple's version is really the future?
Pair them with a set of smart glasses. Who knows, Apple may eventually come out with their own. The problem with VR is that you become completely blind to the actual world.

Check out this article: http://www.pcmag.com/article/347242/ar-vs-vr-whats-the-difference
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
FactVsOpinion Avatar
92 months ago
So instead of being hands free, moving your head around in free-space.
Then with the aid of hand controllers being able to interact with virtual objects.

You have to stand there, looking at a small screen, whilst using both hands to hold it in front of your face.

You sure Apple's version is really the future?
That's not "apple's version" of AR in its limit. That's just AR on a phone. The software technology Apple developed would just as easily work in a headset or other device; and work better than competitors.

In addition, nearly the whole world has a phone already and uses it in way that could be meaningfully enhanced with AR, so Apple's approach is the right first step.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ShinySteelRobot Avatar
92 months ago
So instead of being hands free, moving your head around in free-space.
Then with the aid of hand controllers being able to interact with virtual objects.

You have to stand there, looking at a small screen, whilst using both hands to hold it in front of your face.

You sure Apple's version is really the future?
You've confused Virtual Reality with Augmented Reality. Totally different tech.
[doublepost=1498780919][/doublepost]
I wonder how good the ARKit is going to perform on those "billion" devices out there. Are we really expecting backwards compatibility all the way? How neutered will ARKit be on even one year old devices when iOS 11 launches?
Apple wants to ensure ARKit is a great experience on all supported devices. To that end, ARKit is fully enabled on everything back to iPhone 6S and other devices from that era (basically if your device runs on an A9 chip, you're good to go).

Older devices running on A8 chips and before won't support ARKit, so I can't run it on my iPhone 6 Plus.

Of course, newer devices will probably run ARKit more smoothly, but AFAIK Apple doesn't "neuter" ARKit in any way.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
FrenchRoasted Avatar
92 months ago
Waiting to see pictures of people running around with an iPad strapped to their heads.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)