Apple Just Quietly Gave Us The Golden Key to Unlock The Metaverse
Apple Just Quietly Gave Us The Golden Key to Unlock The Metaverse
Apple has a history of adding technology to its products that only makes sense much later. Developers, and hardcore geeks, know of it, but the general public does not. When a new product is later released to the public, the effect is that it is magically advanced and ‘just works’.
One such technology is the advanced LiDAR scanner that now ships with every iPhone. LiDAR is a technology that measures distance and shape of objects around it much like radar. It enables the phone to know the shapes and distance of objects in any direction of the phone’s field of vision. Effectively, it builds an instant 3D model, in any lighting condition, of the world around it.
Last year, Apple released an update to its suite of Metaverse building tools — ARKit — called Apple Object Capture.
A software update to ARkit has recently been introduced: a technology called RoomPlan.
RoomPlan was released as a part of iOS 16 in early September 2022. And the stand-out app of LiDAR and Apple Object Capture scans has an update that uses RoomPlan. Klas Holmlund, a Metaverse evangelist, recently got to use RoomPlan to determine whether it can fulfill LiDAR’s potential to build an instant 3D model of the world around it.
Want to read Klas Holmlund’s review of the iOS 16 software update (which includes whether RoomPlan can fulfill his Metaverse-related expectations)?