Apple Enhances Augmented Reality Quick Look Feature in Safari With Links to Make Shopping Online Easier

[MacRumors]

Apple is enhancing its Augmented Reality Quick Look feature that's designed to allow users to see augmented reality versions of products they're intending to purchase right in their houses.

According to CNET and TechCrunch, Apple has updated the Quick Look preview feature in Safari to allow retailers to add links and buttons to the augmented reality experience.

When browsing sites like Home Depot, Wayfair, Bang & Olufsen, and 1-800-Flowers, customers will now see options to make purchases and learn more about a product while previewing it in AR mode.

Apple added the Quick Look browsing feature to Safari in 2018, and on sites that have implemented it, it adds a button for putting a 3D object in a room so its size, shape, and other features can be previewed prior to a purchase.

Apple introduced the new link and button tools in iOS 13 and previewed them at WWDC, but retailers have just now begun incorporating the new features.

Prior to the addition of links and other information at the bottom of the augmented reality viewing window, users would need to tap out of the experience to make the purchase or learn more about an item.

The links essentially streamline the shopping process, making it easier to add an item to a shopping cart, find a nearby store, or chat with customer service.

Later this year, Apple plans to further enhance Quick Look with a spatial audio feature, which is included in the iOS 13.4 beta. Spatial audio will allow shopping sites and other augmented reality sites within Safari to add audio to the experience.

Article Link: Apple Enhances Augmented Reality Quick Look Feature in Safari With Links to Make Shopping Online Easier

 

[anthogag]

Cool feature. A person can try a shirt using the selfie camera OR view a vehicle in one’s living room.

 

[Morgenland]

Fantastic, will be a huge success!
I've waited a long time for this step to come...
I hope that soon all internet shops will display their products in 3D by default. You just want to see if they fit in your home or on your body. It's great that Apple is now finally creating a standard GUI interface and due to market power will establish it (while others are still hesitant to take a step with AR).

 

[kaycrystal626]

Nice. I like it.

 

[hipnetic]

The color of the chair looks completely different. Of course, it would probably be very difficult (maybe impossible with today's tech) for them to properly account for how to portray the item properly to take into account your current lighting situation (natural light, indoor lighting of different temperatures, etc.). Still, I couldn't help to notice just how different that chair looks color-wise, which would limit just how useful it would be to give you an semi-accurate feel for how a particular item would look inside your actual room.

 

[nylonsteel]

aapl vr interesting but not quiet there yet to be compelling

 

[darkslide29]

Fantastic, will be a huge success!
I've waited a long time for this step to come...
I hope that soon all internet shops will display their products in 3D by default. You just want to see if they fit in your home or on your body. It's great that Apple is now finally creating a standard GUI interface and due to market power will establish it (while others are still hesitant to take a step with AR).

I've only ever tried this once with a random dog toy on Amazon. There it was in front of me, sitting on my table. I never did order it, so I wasn't sure if the scale was accurate for what I was seeing. But your post makes me optimistic. Sounds useful and fun.

 

[martyjmclean]

I'd love this on IKEA's website... so you don't need one app to visualise furniture, another app to add it to your wishlist, and a website to add it to your basket.

 

[oxfordrunner]

Is an AR app available that takes a bunch of photos of real objects in front of you (not products on a website) and then enables you to move them around, digitally? I feel like this should exist already via AR Kit. I don't want products on a website in my home necessarily, I want to move my own furniture around digitally, or anything else I want. I want to be able to take a bunch of photos, and/or specify dimensions, etc. then move stuff. Anyone else?

 

[Morgenland]

My Safari could not display the 3D button at wayfair.
Anyone more successful?

 

[Morgenland]

Is an AR app available that takes a bunch of photos of real objects in front of you (not products on a website) and then enables you to move them around, digitally? I feel like this should exist already via AR Kit. I don't want products on a website in my home necessarily, I want to move my own furniture around digitally, or anything else I want. I want to be able to take a bunch of photos, and/or specify dimensions, etc. then move stuff. Anyone else?

Many years ago I did work in creating 3D modelling software.
After AR had been used more in gadgets over the last years the actually thrilling ideas were not in focus.

Technically, iPhones, once enhanced with topo sensors (similiar to Face-ID), will be ready to create 3D surface models comfortably. The calculation effort is enormously prone to error if you want to do this freehand without a tripod and professional lighting.
Apple won't settle for half-baked solutions, but I'm sure they are working hard on it. Not only to make their (IMO) embarrassingly ridiculous Keynote game worlds and gamer ingratiations forgotten.

I hope that in 10 years no one will have to enter a conventional furniture store to compare the exhibits with photos from home, just to unfortunately buy something unsuitable again.

The sales structure of fashion can also get new impulses at Apple.
The customer will move naked in front of the camera (the model data is securely stored in iOS, similar to existing biometric data), and the fashion can then be displayed on your walking body with all the real-time wrinkles on the Apple glasses.
Such rendering was already possible for textile designers 30 years ago, it just took a very long time.
Only high-quality rendering allows a real-looking integration with corresponding color space adjustments and shading.
I am looking forward to this future, it will revolutionize the distribution channels of textile fashion products. And it will bring Apple's secure OS an exclusive benefit.