Preview of six AR apps coming to iOS 11 using ARKit, from GIPHY, Walking Dead, Ikea, Food Network, and more, and thoughts on AR controls and other conventions
Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch :
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple unveiled ARKit at WWDC in June 2017, demoing correctly-sized virtual objects placed on a real table through the camera, and early builds like a virtual measuring tape already looked consumer-ready. Two months later, the picture has moved from tech demos to named brands: GIPHY, Walking Dead, Ikea, and Food Network are among six developers with ARKit apps previewed ahead of iOS 11's arrival.
That jump matters because it tests whether ARKit can carry mainstream content, not just novelty utilities — and the article also weighs which AR controls and conventions these first apps settle on, choices that later iterations like ARKit 2's shared experiences would build on.
First-order effects
- iOS 11 users get a launch-day catalog of branded AR apps rather than empty promises, with Ikea among the retailers putting product visualization directly into consumers' hands.
- The six developers become the de facto authors of AR interaction conventions — their control schemes will be copied by every developer shipping after them.
Second-order effects
- Google's Tango, which the June coverage positioned as behind Apple on mass reach, faces pressure to answer a platform where major brands ship AR to hundreds of millions of existing devices without new hardware.
- Brands that sat out this first wave face a visibility gap as Ikea-style AR demos become table stakes for retail and media apps.
Third-order effects
- If Apple keeps the annual cadence visible here — ARKit 1.5 adding vertical planes and image recognition, then ARKit 3's occlusion and ARKit 4's Location Anchors — AR hardens into a tiered platform capability where each iOS release re-sorts which devices and developers can play.
- Consumer expectations shift from 'AR app' as a category to AR as a feature layered into ordinary retail, entertainment, and communication apps.
The trend: Mobile AR is consolidating around Apple's annually iterated ARKit as the default distribution path, pulling branded apps onto the platform faster than dedicated AR hardware efforts can follow.