Apple is planning a major update for its shopping app, which will also use Augmented Reality (AR) for the first time to improve the shopping experience on the iPhone. According to a US media report, such “AR experiences” are not just for your own Apple store retail stores planned, but also for other companies’ physical stores – via a yet to be released API for developers.
Augmented Reality makes sense
Apple has offered AR capabilities for iPhone and iPad for years – along with corresponding APIs for games, for example – but there haven’t been any real killer apps here yet. It’s just inconvenient to have to hold your device up in the air and then explore your surroundings. With the new feature for the Official Apple Store App however, it should be a useful addition. According to Apple journalist Mark Gurman should you hold your iPhone in the direction of a product in the Apple Store to get more information via overlay – For example, prices of different configurations or technical data.
Apple has reportedly been working on the feature since 2020 – even before iOS 14 came onto the market. The launch in the Apple Store app is intended to follow the launch of the API for developers. The function apparently also serves to demonstrate what would be possible with the company’s upcoming first mixed reality headset.
Report: Tests for months
Apparently (secret) tests of the function have been running in the Apple Stores for months. This is to ensure that the new Apple Store app works as intended by the manufacturer. It has not yet been revealed whether the beta API has already been released for other companies to carry out internal reviews. For Apple, the feature seems to be one of the most important AR-related products in recent years, and the project is said to be high on the agenda.
Apple boss Tim Cook has been emphasizing for years how important augmented reality technology is to him. Most recently, he said people will soon be wondering how they would have lived without AR before. He had previously said AR is a “profound technology”. Cook, on the other hand, tends to reject virtual reality apps because they take people out of their natural environment. He prefers to overlay data from the virtual world over reality, something that is also said to be planned for the new mixed reality hardware (“Reality Pro”).
(bsc)
