Google shows off ARCore, its answer to Apple’s ARKit

1. In a couple of weeks, Apple will release ARKit with iOS 11 and, overnight, hundreds of millions of Apple devices will become augmented reality-capable machines, giving developers a sort of new mobile gold rush to find their niche and capitalize on the platform Apple CEO Tim Cook has called “big and profound.”

Google has similarly been experimenting with smartphone AR since it first showed off Project Tango to the world in 2014. Three years later the company has some great technology to show off as a result, but very little in the way of actual users. Today, the company is signaling a bit of a reactionary shift in its strategy by releasing a developer preview of ARCore, a platform that will deliver AR capabilities to Android smartphones at a scale Tango was never able to reach.