Apple Reveals Short List of AR Apps Coming to App Store This Month

With ARKit in the wild for a few months now, Apple’s special iPhone 8 event was the place to announce the coming wave of augmented reality apps. Senior VP of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller took the stage to introduce a few apps coming to the App Store later this month, which left us wanting more.

Calling augmented ‘the smartphone camera’s third category’ behind its ability to take video and photos, Schiller only introduced four AR apps—less than we’d hoped for, but pretty cool none the less.

There’s likely plenty more coming, as the company has already revealed that they’re working with IKEA, Lego, and a number of others to bring AR apps and games to the App Store—not to mention the slew of creators developing AR apps on the “hundred of millions of devices” that can already run iOS 11. Critically missing was anything from Niantic, the creators behind breakout success Pokemon Go.

The Machines

Coming from Directive Games was the star of the show, The Machines. Warranting an on-stage demo, the competitive multiplayer RTS lets you duke it out with your friends in the same room in augmented reality. Using two Apple 8s, the developers played a quick game to show off the little tabletop game.

Warhammer 40k: Free Blade

Much like a true AR-version of Pokemon Go’s ‘AR mode’, Pixel Toys’ Warhammer 40k: Free Blade lets you activate a special AR camera mode to bring characters from the game into the physical world and play it right where you’re standing.

Major League Baseball – At Bat

So you’re already watching a game a baseball game on TV, but with MLB’s At Bat app, you’ll soon be able to see real-time player info and stats overlayed on the game you’re watching.

Skyguide

One of the coolest apps we’ve seen is Skyguide, an app that lets you quickly learn the constellations simply by gazing up into the sky and looking at your phone.

This story is breaking. We’ll fill in more info as it comes in.