Augmented Reality has been around in one form or another for a few years now. But, while the notion of holding your phone screen aloft to add an extra layer over the real world may not be new, Apple’s ARKit is. It uses a dedicated chipset in its latest phones and a bespoke software development kit to allow for a whole new wave of amazing AR apps.

With Apple’s iPhone X out now (alongside the brilliant iPhone 8 and 8 Plus), and with all three devices imbued with the necessary tech wizardry to bring AR to new heights, we’ve been combing the App Store to uncover the very best ARKit apps available…

Night Sky | Free + IAP

The Night Sky series of apps has always been a great way to get to grips with the constellations, but ARKit integration has enabled a whole new level of stargazing thanks to the AR Grand Orrery. This new feature lets you beam the solar system into your living room, walk around and explore it, and learn like never before.

IKEA Place | Free

Looking to redecorate? IKEA Place uses Augmented Reality to solve the age old problem of not knowing whether something will suit your room before you bring it home. Just hold up your phone, choose something from the store’s catalogue, and slot it into place where it would sit. You can then move all around to see how it’d work with your current setup.

PLNAR | Free + IAP

If that new sofa turned out to be such a dud that you now want to move home, worry not: PLNAR makes creating professional looking floorplans super easy. Just point it around your rooms and it’ll measure every wall (including window and door placement), and render an accurate floorplan that you can export to a PDF.

MeasureKit | Free + IAP

On a similar note, ARKit can help take the strain out of measuring just about any odd thing around the home. MeasureKit is an incredibly smart tool, jam-packed with clever rulers for anything and everything, including simple straight lines to curved trajectories and angles. It’ll also let you know if your pictures are straight, and it can even measure people just by looking at them.

Project Chalk | Free

We’ve all been there: a friend or relative calls with tech woes, but you can’t help because you can’t see what they’re seeing. Project Chalk wants to put a swift end to that conundrum by letting you enter into a video chat with the person who needs help, from which you can check out what they’re looking at before drawing helpful arrows, circles or other prompts onto ‘that button there’ or ‘this switch over here’.

Fitness AR | Free

Do you track your runs with Strava? Then you pretty much have to try out the company’s new Fitness AR app. It takes the flat, still maps of you usually get following a runaround and turns them into a 3D tabletop diorama, presented in crystal clear HD on your phone screen for you to pan around, examine, and humblebrag about to whoever’s in the room with you.

ARise | £2.99

If you played and loved the two Monument Valley games, ARise will probably seem like those titles’ next logical step. It’s an AR-only game in which you help guide a little armoured knight around a series of mind-boggling 3D environments by panning around the map to change your view, forcing new ways forward into being. It’s clever stuff, and a great showcase for how AR can bring a whole new perspective to gaming. Literally.

Chess+ AR | £1.99

Chess is one of the world’s oldest and most popular games for a reason: it’s easy to learn, but takes a lifetime to master. ChessAR brings the game’s computerised iterations into the real world by projecting a 3D board onto your nearest coffee table (or bed, or floor), gifting that ‘real game’ feel while helping you spot angles of attack you might miss with a top-down 2D viewpoint.

If you want to get in on the action for yourself, why not snag yourself a brand new iPhone on our best ever network? Head over to vodafone.co.uk to choose yours now!

Where to next?

Show me how ARKit works

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The post Augmented Reality 2.0: The best ARKit apps for iPhone X and iPhone 8 appeared first on Vodafone Social.

Source: Official Vodafone Blog
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