Apple will be hosting a session at this year's Game Developers Conference for the first time, offering an introduction to ARKit, its augmented reality platform for developers.
The session will be presented by Michael Kuhn, who leads Apple's ARKit engineering team.
Entitled "Introduction to Apple's ARKit: Best practices and recent updates," the talk will cover core concepts of the ARKit framework and the ARKit API. It's designed to teach game developers how to get started with ARKit, and it will cover ARKit best practices.
This session introduces core concepts of the ARKit framework, it's underlying principles, and the ARKit API. It explains how to get started with ARKit using the different tracking and scene understanding capabilities as well integration into rendering/game engines. The session also highlights best practices for AR like starting an experience, placing objects in the real world, interacting with them and implications for games. In addition it explains basic concepts and challenges of AR and Computer Vision to help avoid common pitfalls and allow the creation of great experiences.
Apple has not previously offered developer sessions at GDC, but this is the first GDC since the launch of ARKit and Apple is likely hoping to get more game developers interested in implementing augmented reality features.
ARKit was introduced as part of iOS 11 back in September of 2017, and since then, developers have incorporated augmented reality features into more than 2,000 apps. Major improvements are coming to ARKit with the launch of iOS 11.3 and ARKit 1.5, which may come out right around when GDC takes place and will likely be a topic of discussion.
ARKit 1.5 can map irregularly shaped surfaces for better detection of ambient surroundings, it can recognize and map vertical surfaces like walls and doors, and it includes an image detection feature that works on everything from movie posters to bar codes.
The 2018 Game Developers Conference will kick off on March 19 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, and it will last until March 23.
Friday September 19, 2025 10:02 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
As reported by Bloomberg today, some of the new iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone Air models on display at Apple Stores today are already scratched and scuffed.
French blog Consomac also reported on this topic.
The scratches appear to be most prominent on models with darker finishes, including the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max in Deep Blue, and the iPhone Air in Space Black.
Images Credit: Consoma ...
Thursday September 18, 2025 9:17 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple is preparing to release iOS 26.0.1, according to a private account on X with a proven track record of sharing information about future iOS versions.
The update will have a build number of 23A350, or similar, the account said.
It is likely that iOS 26.0.1 will fix a camera-related bug on the new iPhone Air and iPhone 17 Pro models. In his iPhone Air review, CNN Underscored's Henry T. ...
Friday September 19, 2025 7:39 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
While the iPhone Air is equipped with Apple's custom C1X modem for cellular connectivity, all of the iPhone 17 models are outfitted with Qualcomm modems still.
A teardown video shared on Chinese platform Bilibili today (via Reddit) appears to confirm the iPhone 17 Pro Max is equipped with Qualcomm's Snapdragon X80 modem in particular. The same modem is likely used in the iPhone 17 and iPhone ...
Apple's new iPhones launch today, and there are plenty of options to choose from when it comes to protecting your new device from drops and scratches. In this article, we're taking a look at some of the best options for iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Air cases, as well as a few charging accessories.
Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you click a...
Wednesday September 17, 2025 2:56 pm PDT by Juli Clover
It's been two days since iOS 26 was released, and Apple's new Liquid Glass design is even more divisive than expected.
Any major design change can create controversy as people get used to the new look, but the MacRumors forums, Reddit, Apple Support Communities, and social media sites seem to feature more criticism than praise as people discuss the update.
Complaints
There are a long...
Friday September 19, 2025 8:39 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
YouTube channel REWA Technology today shared an iPhone 17 Pro teardown video, offering a closer look inside the model with a SIM card tray.
We are still waiting for repair website iFixit to share a more comprehensive teardown of the latest iPhone models, but this video provides a good look in the meantime.
The device features various internal design changes, including larger rear camera...
OK explain what am i missing here, how much more is there to a console than CPU/GPU and a controller. The controller on Switch is nowhere near a good controller, you can buy a good controller and pair it easily with an AppleTV. On the Go gaming can be easily done on your iphone. Plus mobile gaming is a totally different market, i am trying to discuss a "good" Micro console here. Nintendo Switch is neither. The biggest reason for its success is not mobility but availability of good games even many AAA titles. Look at Wii U gamepad. It had portability but the games are no good. Wii U failed for teh same reason, lack of good games, and what can serve good(AAA) games better if not good hardware?
Another example of this is the success of NES Classic launch. NES has great number of good games, even some of Nintendo's own IP is superb on NES. The NES Classic relaunch succeeded piggy backing on the old time gamers Nostalgia about NES Classic and availability of good games. which also wasnt portable but small enough to carry in your bag to your friends place. along with regular size NES controllers.
I agree that good games is the no.1 reason for the success of a console, but you can't say that because Apple TV has better CPU/GPU than the Switch it is a more capable console. Again, it doesn't even come with a game controller. If you want to compete on the stationary console market, first make something that rivals the best in that field, PS4 Pro/Xbox One X.
Very nice Apple has to up its game among Game Devs. They have a very capable Gaming Console in AppleTV with power far superior to Nintendo Switch or Sony PS3 but they are unable to sell it as a capable game console to either users or devs, which feeds the loopback cycle of lack of good AAA game content. It burns my heart looking at Nintendo Switch being an inferior hardware making it and a superior hardware like Apple's A'series chips not able to succeed in the gaming market.
