It absolutely does not make sense for Apple to support this on Android. AR is something that uniquely leverages assets that Apple has: its various AR related acquisitions (Metaio, FlyBy Media, Faceshift, Emotient, WiFiSLAM, PrimeSense) and most importantly their prowess in chip design.
It is trivial for the Android ecosystem to replicate an Instagram for their platform, it will be much more difficult to do this for AR and thus will be a meaningful source of competitive advantage.
There are real economic barriers to having the necessary hardware for AR. High-end Android phones don't ship anywhere near the numbers of iPhones to give it the scale required to make the necessary investments in hardware and software worth it (both from OEMs and Google). And that will ultimately limit the opportunity and market for developers, disincentivizing them to invest in it.
This is an area where Apple's scale, margins and ability to deploy new technologies and see meaningful adoption from users and developers (think about how fast Touch ID rolled down into the entire iPhone/iPad installed base, setting it up for Apple Pay years later) pulls up the ladder on would-be competitors.
The fact that Tango isn't on the Pixel means Google has no confidence in it and nobody should invest in it as Google will likely abandon it quickly. It's a shame, I think it's great idea, and they'll only end up playing catch up later if they do.
1. The technology is still new and not yet polished
2. Pixel 1 was a rushed job made in 9 months
3. Tango needs extra hardware that increases cost
I have a feeling that Pixel 2 might have it though, as they had much more time working on it and the technology itself has matured a lot more since, as we saw at IO. Not only that, they also showed off VPS which is a visual position system for indoors using Tango. Definitely a killer feature for the Pixel.
You're probably right, but I think it's important to note the difference between Touch ID (a user feature) and ARKit (a developer feature). Users won't know or care about ARKit if developers don't adopt it.
This is the most relevant post in this thread. Holding up an iPad for hours pointing it at a table to play Millenium Falcon animated chess makes very little sense, but it will be incredibly cool when your friends can all sit around the table with their Apple Glasses on, and see the same AR projection :)
It is trivial for the Android ecosystem to replicate an Instagram for their platform, it will be much more difficult to do this for AR and thus will be a meaningful source of competitive advantage.
There are real economic barriers to having the necessary hardware for AR. High-end Android phones don't ship anywhere near the numbers of iPhones to give it the scale required to make the necessary investments in hardware and software worth it (both from OEMs and Google). And that will ultimately limit the opportunity and market for developers, disincentivizing them to invest in it.
This is an area where Apple's scale, margins and ability to deploy new technologies and see meaningful adoption from users and developers (think about how fast Touch ID rolled down into the entire iPhone/iPad installed base, setting it up for Apple Pay years later) pulls up the ladder on would-be competitors.