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lack of a killer app. I remember a few years ago when AR was mostly about
Wayfair-like furniture placement apps, 3D dioramas for education, and a few
games. That’s still the case. The best hope is in broad AR development
platforms such as Augment and Jig, which let businesses and educators put
together their own AR models.
The 12.9-inch iPad’s form factor doesn’t make AR feel like the next big thing.
Playing AR Angry Birds in my living room was super cool, but holding the large
tablet in front of me for an extended period of time wasn’t pleasant. It’s too big
to comfortably hold in one hand while swiping with another.
The best theory I’ve heard about LiDAR is that it’s a stalking horse for Apple’s
long-rumored augmented-reality glasses. Glasses—not tablets—are the
presumed killer AR device, and Apple has supposedly been working on some
for years.
THREE GOOD CAMERAS
The iPad Pro has a 12-megapixel main rear camera, a new 10-megapixel 0.5x
wide-angle rear camera, and a 7-megapixel front-facing camera. While the main
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taking photos with a 12.9-inch tablet are poor, and the main camera’s primary
use is probably to feed those AR apps.