Asus ZenFone AR Review Suggests Tango Will Remain a Niche AR Product (Aug 18, 2017)
Android Police has a review of the Asus ZenFone AR, the second phone to carry Google’s Tango augmented reality technology. It sounds like it’s a big improvement over the clunky first phone from Lenovo, but it certainly doesn’t sound like it’ll be a big seller, while Tango itself doesn’t sound like it’s moved on much either. The review is worth noting because Google has been in AR for far longer than Apple, and yet Tango seems to have stalled at the experimental phase, with lots of effort from Google and yet very little to show for it. Two phones, neither of which will end up selling in large numbers, very few apps and essentially no meaningful position in AR just at a time when the space is about to take off thanks to Apple’s entry through ARKit in iOS. That’s something of an indictment of Google’s failure in this area, with its Daydream VR effort faring a little better but also not yet finding a sizable market niche to call its own. One other thing to note from the review here: it sounds like Tango absolutely hammers battery life on this device, and that’s something that will be well worth watching when ARKit-based apps launch on the iPhone in September. Pokemon Go has already taught us that apps featuring AR (and location-based elements) can be hard on batteries and still be popular, but it will detract from AR’s popularity on the iPhone if ARKit apps show a comparable tradeoff in battery life.
via Android Police
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