Will ARCore be implementing Tango level ToF capability or will Tango be relaunched to support new phones with ToF? - arcore

With new phones (Huawei P30 Pro, Oppo RX17 Pro, Galaxy S10,etc) now having rear ToF, will Google relaunch Tango or build the ToF (structured light) capabilities into ARCore. I used Tango to develop for the Asus Zenfone AR and loved what you could do with it, but Tango was shelved soon afterwards. With rear ToF coming back around (and hopefully hear to stay), when will Google re-release their ToF SDK so to be able to develop for ToF again?

This is very interesting question. Two years ago, Google might feel disappointed that few manufacturers were willing to integrate depth camera. However today, the trend seems to that more and more high-end phones are going to integrate structure light for front-face camera and ToF for rear-face camera. First because of the hard competition among Android phones, second, rumors says the next generation iPhone will do so as well. As long as the hardware manufactures are willing to integrate it, there is no reason for Google NOT to relaunch Tango, or let's say re-enable those Tango feature in the next version of ARCore.

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Considering user experience, what is the best device (phone or tablet) for AR apps?

Where Google demonstrates ARCore usually with a smartphone, Apple does that with an iPad. Therefore my question, considering user experience as the most important thing, what is the best device (phone or tablet), to use an AR app.
The answer(s) to this question might become opinionated very quickly, but I hope to find a good, objective answer(s) here or to start an interesting discussion on this subject.
The best AR demo device is no doubt the F35 pilot's helmet. I hope the modest price tag of $400K will not deter you.
Microsoft HoloLens and MagicLeap glasses are also nice, but not available for consumers on the date I am writing this.
For demo, you can actually use Oculus or cheaper VR sets, if you want only to show pre-recorded AR experience.
As an opinion, based on some hands-on experience, I'd say currently, the iPhone X, running 1OS 12, and using ARKit 2 compiled with XCode 10. The main reason for this is the True Depth front facing camera; I have been able to do eye tracking with it.
Some Open Source projects that have eye tracking or otherwise use the True Depth camera (I got started from these):
Apple Developer: Creating Face-Based AR Experiences
Apple Developer: Streaming Depth Data from the TrueDepth Camera
GitHub: virakri/eye-tracking-ios-prototype
Github: andrewzimmer906/HeatMapEyeTracking
I have a Magic Leap device, but have not yet gone beyond the hello world stage. And I can carry an iPhone X around, and use it without stares or comments, but the ML device is likely to be about as well received as Google Glass in bar.
Considering user AR experience, the best device for Augmented Reality is the one that has well-calibrated Accelerometer and Gyroscope sensors, and high-quality RGB back camera.
All Apple phones and tablets with A9 chipset and higher, have well-calibrated sensors:
iPhones – SE / 6s / 7 / 8 / X / Xs / Xr / 11 / 11 Pro
iPads – 2017 /2017 Pro / 2018 / 2018 Pro / 2019
The best ones that tailored for a robust AR experience are, of course, iPhones of X-series and iPads Pro-series (they have more powerful CPU/GPU, neural engines and TrueDepth front camera).
Android flagmans, such as Google, Huawei, or Samsung, also have well-calibrated IMUs, but the majority of low-end Android phones have no gyroscope at all. So many Android users can't build a robust AR experience or have no AR experience at all.

Support for more devices for ARCore - Huawei Nova Plus

Exist the possibility to support more devices? For example, I have a Huawei Nova Plus, I think this phone fit with all the hardware and software capabilities to support applications developed with ARCore.
Exist the possibility to support more devices?
Yes
But probably only new ones.
Support ARCore is not about how new or old your device is, but if it has gyroscopes, cameras, accelerometers, miniaturized high-resolution displays.
And if it pass for some tests before get launched.
So even maybe new devices will not be support.
You don't need to instal it manualy if you instal an AR-optional app it will be downloaded automaticly. Click down below to get what i mean:
https://developers.google.com/ar/develop/java/enable-arcore
Tbh I guess its possible, the Huawei Nova 2 Plus has a gyroscope, a accelerometer, and a camera, I even contacted google about this, because I wish my phone (a Huawei nova 2 Plus) can run ARcore :)

ARCore list of supported devices in the future

I hope there is no other topic with the same question but I couldn't find anything related.
Is there a list of supported future devices for ARCore and when those will be probably available? I just got a Huawei Mate10 pro and would love to know when it will be supported.
I'm also up for testing alpha/beta versions.
The ARCore developer previews currently only work with Pixel (XL), Pixel 2 (XL) and Samsung Galaxy S8 devices.
You may want to follow this thread on ARCore's GitHub issues: https://github.com/google-ar/arcore-android-sdk/issues/89
In the meantime, if you want to get started developing for AR and you have an ARKit (iOS) compatible device, you can try Viro React which is a cross-platform AR/VR platform with a write once run everywhere type of a deal.
None can read the future, but you can follow the official list of supported phones as it grows:
https://developers.google.com/ar/discover/
As of 11/march/2018:
Google Pixel
Asus Zenfone AR
LG V30/V30+
OnePlus 5
Samsung Galaxy: S7, S7 edge, S8, S8+, Galaxy 8

ZenFone AR and Lenovo Phab 2 Pro, which one is better for AR development?

Google provides the AR developers with Tango platform.
There are two smart phones supporting Tango, ZenFone AR and Lenovo Phab 2 Pro.
If you are a AR developer then which one you gonna choose?
One of them isn't even out yet (Q2 2017) and couldn't be tested by anyone since there were no Tango apps installed when they showed it at CES, so how should one compare? The hardware seems to be stronger, it will be smaller, but the price is still unknown.

Difference between Tablets, palm devices, touch pads

Can anybody please help me out with the difference between tablets, iPads and palm devices. I am new in this area and have no idea what are the specifics of this devices or how they differ from one another. iPad is from Apple, are there any other devices similar to iPad but are from HP or Android????
Also what is the difference in developing apps on this machines. Like if I can develop app for an iPad, will it be easy for me to develop a similar one for HP or Android device(if they have something similar to iPhone).
There has been a lot of press lately about tablet devices, Apple seems to have set the pace with the iPad and the iPad 2 is rumored to be announced sometime soon.
iPad apps are written primarily in Objective-C using the iOS SDK free from Apple on the iOS Developer Center. It does cost $99 to deploy apps to a device and distribute them however. There are other tools to develop iOS applications such as MonoTouch and PhoneGap
Blackberry is about to release the Playbook which from my understanding runs Adobe Air applications.
HP just announced the Touchpad which runs WebOS, the applications are primarily built using web technologies (HTML, Javascript, etc)
Then there are a slew of devices coming out that run Android, I think the next one that will be available to consumers is the Motorola Xoom. Android apps are developed primarily in Java using the Android SDK which is free and platform independent.
This market is evolving very fast and there are a lot of players, it seems Apple has the solid ground a this point.
Developing applications for these devices can differ quite a bit, one way that you can reach all devices is by developing a tablet centric webapp such as Yahoo!'s tablet site
I-Pad apps can only be created on a mac PC and will likely share no code with an HP device, I believe HP do make an android laptop but not a touchpad.
Touchpads similar to i-pads do exist and some do indeed run android. Take a visit to your nearest computing or electricals store and they are bound to have one.
A palm device is smaller and fits within the palm of your hand, The i-phone or a blackberry would count as a palm device. Any regular 'non' smartphone(iphones blackberrys again) also classifies but i dont believe this is what you are looking for.
Android is not a company, Android is an operating system that your code will run on. Other companies make the device which then has android installed.

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