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Apple Stores to Offer New Augmented Reality Experiences, Including Interactive Art Walks Around Major Cities

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Apple today announced it has opened registration for three new art-based augmented reality experiences at its stores around the world.

ar-walk-apple.jpg

First up, select Apple stores in San Francisco, New York, London, Paris, Hong Kong, and Tokyo will be hosting interactive "[AR]T Walks" featuring augmented reality works by some of the "world's premier contemporary artists."

ar-walk-apple-2.jpg

Second, every Apple Store will be offering a 90-minute in-store "[AR]T Lab" session that teaches the basics of creating augmented reality using Swift Playgrounds. Attendees will go hands-on with "whimsical objects and immersive sounds" created by New York artist and educator Sarah Rothberg.

Third, an augmented reality art installation will be viewable in every Apple Store worldwide. Using the new "[AR]T Viewer" feature in the Apple Store app, users can initiate artist Nick Cave's interactive "Amass" piece, allowing them to experience a "universe of positive energy."


The new sessions and experiences will be available beginning Saturday, August 10, free of charge. Visit the Today at Apple website to register.

Article Link: Apple Stores to Offer New Augmented Reality Experiences, Including Interactive Art Walks Around Major Cities
 
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https://www.macrumors.com/2019/07/30/apple-stores-art-ar-experiences/
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keysofanxiety

keysofanxiety

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now i see it said:
they're still trying to find a purpose for it
Click to expand...

Driving around and AR shows you the route directly on your windscreen. Walking in town and it'll give little popups for places of interest that you can find more about when tapping them. Buying clothes and trying them on in AR to see how they fit. Measuring and dropping furniture in your house to see how big it would be and how it looks in context.

Those are just a few off the top of my head. Yes they're fairly mundane things but with enough time, it'll be something we can't imagine we lived without. AR's still in its infancy but I can definitely see lots of purposes for it.

In terms of offering the consumer technology that will soon become ubiquitous, AR is far more useful than VR which involves slapping on a massive headset and locking yourself away from the world, rather than incorporating virtual images into the world.
 
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Exponent

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Sorry, this reeks of desperation. Plus, if it takes off, it will lead to people with their nose buried in their phone and being unaware of their peripheral vision even more than they are already.

(I can just see it now: "Ooh, let's walk around this giant virtual foot that's in the middle of this city street!" Screech! Splat!)
 
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citysnaps

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orbital~debris said:
This sounds good & interesting!

Of course, the stuck-in-the-muds won’t get it :rolleyes:.

But this is a rather cool way to demonstrate the potential of the technology many have in their pockets.

And being open to experiencing art is never a bad thing - it can have a powerful positive impact.
Click to expand...

Yes, it should be a great introduction to easy-to-grasp potential applications of AR and provide some insight as to where Apple is going.

Just the other day on NPR there was a segment on how AR is helping pediatric orthopedic surgeons with their craft. Both in training and assisting surgery, where orthopedic surgery on children presents far more complications where things can go wrong, requiring a larger knowledge base, than on adults.

The potential for AR is huge. Stanford Medical Center and Stanford University now have classes on how AR can be used in medicine.
 
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dannyyankou

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now i see it said:
they're still trying to find a purpose for it
Click to expand...
As with any new technology. But I can think of a couple. Imagine you’re walking downtown with your family looking for somewhere to eat. You come across a restaurant, and you can take your phone out and pull up menus, reviews, and more by pointing your phone at the restaurant.

Or you can use AR for places like museums, point your phone at different exhibits and get information on screen. Or let’s say you go to Smithsonian Fossil Hall in DC, you can get interactive models of dinosaurs right on your phone.
 
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Achiever

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Apple: "We are concerned about how much people are using their devices, so we have developed an app called Screen Time to help avoid over-usage."

Also Apple: "We are introducing a project in some of the world's best and most populous cities, so if you walk around while holding up your iPhone, you might see a giant green foot."
 
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citysnaps

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dannyyankou said:
As with any new technology. But I can think of a couple. Imagine you’re walking downtown with your family looking for somewhere to eat. You come across a restaurant, and you can take your phone out and pull up menus, reviews, and more by pointing your phone at the restaurant.

Or you can use AR for places like museums, point your phone at different exhibits and get information on screen. Or let’s say you go to Smithsonian Fossil Hall in DC, you can get interactive models of dinosaurs right on your phone.
Click to expand...

For sure... Just takes a bit of imagination.

With respect to imagination, I think some people are better equipped and more receptive, than others.
 
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Exponent

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dannyyankou said:
You come across a restaurant, and you can take your phone out and pull up menus, reviews, and more by pointing your phone at the restaurant.

Or you can use AR for places like museums, point your phone at different exhibits and get information on screen. Or let’s say you go to Smithsonian Fossil Hall in DC, you can get interactive models of dinosaurs right on your phone.
Click to expand...

These are useful applications of geotagging, markers, and QR-code thingies. (Admittedly I'm often wondering how to process that last one - a built in app? A special app? What?)

However, the information they give, 99% of the time, is best viewed as a simple webpage format, rather than something requiring holding your phone at a certain angle in a certain direction at a certain height, in relative stillness.
 
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ZMacintosh

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all this tech stuff, including AR really is not "consumer" type stuff, this is great for education and medical...but every day people its not for I don't see the functional purpose of staring into a screen to have an "experience". Even their presentation of a bunch of people looking goofy around a black tablecloth table point iPads at imaginary sets is very bleh. again medical and school stuff sure.

dannyyankou said:
As with any new technology. But I can think of a couple. Imagine you’re walking downtown with your family looking for somewhere to eat. You come across a restaurant, and you can take your phone out and pull up menus, reviews, and more by pointing your phone at the restaurant.

Or you can use AR for places like museums, point your phone at different exhibits and get information on screen. Or let’s say you go to Smithsonian Fossil Hall in DC, you can get interactive models of dinosaurs right on your phone.
Click to expand...

But geolocation would do that too, just like you walk into an apple store and pop-ups their app and details. but still rather limited and forced at this point. not saying worthless just its not as amazing yet...for a consumer this would be an appliance of sorts, like for example in the museum or using maps or navigating to see obstacles ahead points of interest, etc.
 
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ThunderSkunk

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There are the two most obvious and glaring ultimate uses of it, which will take getting over the hump to do on a large scale, at least one of which Apple will resist as long as possible, but both are inevitable: Indulging peoples appetites for violence and sex (not that there’s any money in the tiny video game and porn industries) where it’s safe, fake, but with levels of fantasy and realism tailor-made to the apes desires, so they can shoot spaceships out of the sky over their neighborhood and kill everyone they see on their sidewalk, and have an army of their favorite actresses heads on pornstars soiling their living room, and then act like a civilized person at their workstations during the day and pay their taxes like a good boy. That’s where those have been headed since Atari and VHS.

But it boggles the mind to think that with all the limitations of data representation and 3d visualization over the decades, and how they’ve in turn limited product and service development in industries worldwide, that there are still people who can’t see past their own shoes to beyond the arbitrary imaginary stopping point of what is available right now, today. I’m about to sell off my company and build a group to capitalize on this in my industry, and you guys are still thinking of it in terms of solving an existing problem you can’t identify? Perhaps it’s time you consider investing in coal mines, wagon wheels, & donkey rentals?
 
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