Apple Shows Us How The Future AR Bowling Game Will Be Like With Its ARKit 3

Alright, so we all know a few major tech firms have been working on augmented reality with their own creations. While Magic Leap makes its own AR goggles and Microsoft introduced the HoloLens 2, Apple and Google are digging into AR through flat screens. However, the difference between these two companies is that Google is focusing on quick assistance and utility, but Apple aims at more realistic effects and graphics.

At WWDC 2019, the tech giant unveiled several AR tools to come this fall, which include Reality Composer – an entire AR-making toolkit. And we have ARKit 3 that involves an iPad or iPhone packing the A12 chip to generate the most impressive effects. And CNET's reporters got to try it.

So, imagine yourself scrambling on a wooden floor, trying to defend from a huge virtual ball with an iPad Pro. Though it appears to be a bowling alley, there are cheers from a crowd. Then there’s another player standing opposite to you, launching a ball at you, the ball shoots past you. You try to run after it but it’s too late, the ball knocks down the pins and you lose. This is what the future of Apple’s upcoming AR looks like: collaborative, fast-paced, and headset-free.

Dubbed Swift Strike, we will see how far things have reached this year. This is a multiplayer game, but instead of standing at one place or a small area, users can run around a much larger area. What Apple is probably still lacking here is a pair of AR glasses to ditch the inconvenience of holding, looking at an iPad all the time.

The coolest thing Swift Strike offers is occlusion. This means when players pass in front of AR things on an iPhone, a virtual IKEA sofa, for example, the illusion will be shattered. With ARKit 3, however, users can walk in front and block the objects as if there were a real distance between them. It’s able to layer AR objects among real humans or vice versa, layer real humans into AR things within a landscape. This trick will appear in both Minecraft Earth and Swift Strike.

For now, Apple hasn’t revealed if it will roll this game out in masses or not.

Although occlusion wasn’t perfect with objects sometimes flickering between in front and behind players, the realism it added was significant. And with haptic vibrations on the device every time the ball hits, the game feels even more like in real life.

But still, players have to hold an iPad in front of them the whole time, it works fine when the ball is right in front of them. However, when it’s pushed past them, finding it using the iPad is much more difficult than wearing a 3D AR headset. Apple hasn’t had one yet and hasn’t even announced any plans for one, but we may see an AR headset next year.

This may be a stepping stone for the company toward immersive arcade attractions, too. As per his description, the iPad tracked the movements of players while they ran around to push the virtual ball into the bowling pins. CNET’s Eli Blumenthal said:

While Apple brought AR to iOS 12 in 2018, it has taken bigger steps this year which should make such games more possible. Share maps, where users can scan real landscapes and build a cross-device map together, is possible. Anchored objects can stay persistent and be seen by multiple players.

It’s quite reasonable to think that this is AR, perfected. What they experienced was a demo, long before Apple releases ARKit 3 in iOS 13 as well as iPadOS this fall. But sure, we will soon get our hands on a faster, more fluid AR world.