Small Talk: about the present and future of AR with Andrey Ivashentsev

Speaker profile: Ivashentsev has worked at Microsoft for more than six years, where he was also the head of the department of technological Evangelism. Also, for a little more than a year and a half, he was responsible at Game Insight for coordinating new innovative products and strategic partnerships with technology vendors. Now he is engaged in his own projects, including in the field of VR \ AR and other innovations.

Alexander Semenov, Senior Editor App2Top.ru : Let‘s start with the latest WWDC. Usually, when you read the reaction of users after the presentation of the first day, you constantly come across criticism, then they don’t like one thing, then another. This time it’s different. You watch the tape, and there’s “Silence, and the dead with braids are standing.” And it’s a little strange, as if everyone is in such a little shock.

Andrey Ivashentsev

Andrey Ivashentsev, Chief Innovation Officer at Yode Group: Do not be surprised by the reaction of the majority. That evening I was in Gadget Studio with IT journalist Nikolai Turubar, and out of the corner of my eye I watched a piece of WWDC with him under the hookah. Somehow it so happened that everyone was waiting for the Next Big Thing, but it was not announced in any way. Nikolai was noticeably sad about this.

Apple has introduced a new version of the operating system that just works a little better on the same devices, and all the technologies announced last year have become a little more functional and convenient.

Last year, ARKit turned out to be the most breakthrough, there was CoreML, there was VR for Mac, there were announcements of platform functionality that changed the approach to development at least a little. Even a smart column, and that was. This time I didn’t even feel offended that I wasn’t in San Jose.

The main intrigue, according to tradition, was what the new macOS will be called.

Yes, yes, yes. I was also very pleased with the announcement of the feature, thanks to which the wallpaper now changes depending on the time of day.

Andrey: Unfortunately, this makes it clear that today Apple lacks the content itself, about which they professionally know how to talk beautifully.

Maybe the company just realized that it is no longer necessary to go into intensive growth, it is better to go into extensive growth?

Andrey: Unclear. The audience is too used to the fact that the bar of expectations is being raised higher every year. But you can’t get into someone else’s skin when it comes to betting billions of dollars.

It seems to me that they simply could not prepare and properly pack some cool things about which it would be worth telling beautifully. Well, or these announcements are tolerated until the fall, when it will be necessary to surprise the public with new devices.

I’m still really looking forward to AR glasses, for which Apple (according to unconfirmed, of course, data) is preparing the AR ecosystem with ARKit. But most likely, we won’t see it for at least a year.

I really liked the position of Anatoly Ropotov [CEO of Game Insight], who noted on Facebook that the absence of a large number of new features allows us to finish the tasks that I haven’t managed to put the squeeze on over the past year in a calm mode. They say it’s good when there is time to calmly make games.

Andrey: In general, Tolya is right, this year will be easier for developers for the Apple platform.

However, this is also a convenient excuse in favor of the lazy. Every year, key platforms roll out another set of technological chips and innovations that are worth running after if you want to be on the crest of a wave and make a modern and relevant product.

If you don’t have to run anywhere this year, then you will just walk slowly, and by next year you will become much more relaxed. When something revolutionary hits, you will not have enough tone or time reserve. You know perfectly well how it happens if you postpone something for later, and then you figure everything out a week before the deadline.

And nothing is executed, yes.

Andrey: This is a standard story, repeated from year to year, when the theory “and so it will come down” works. A similar situation was with the 64-bit architecture: until Apple forced everyone to switch, only a few itched on this topic.

The same theme was with Flash. Google has already officially written: “Guys, we are turning off all support from such a date,” but no one believed until the last.

Andrey: It will always be like this. Someone will always think, “Okay, it’ll be a ride anyway. It’s always been a ride, it’ll be a ride anyway, we’re cool.” And there are a lot of examples here…

Let’s go back to ARKit 2.

Andrey: I thought you were going to ask me about emojis now. If last year there was a very trending version of a talking turd, then this year you can stick out your tongue. This is a breakthrough technology that we have been looking forward to for a whole year.

You’re being ironic for nothing. Sticking out your tongue is actually a cool topic. Something else upsets me. In the gaming aspect, companies do not use this functionality.

Andrey: I haven’t seen anything sane either, but I have a logical explanation for this. How often do you see someone using such functionality among users? Of course, I’ve seen animoji on Instagram a couple of times, but that’s it. Whether it’s filters with bunny ears.

By the way, this is also just a variant of AR, augmented reality in the form of an animoji. It’s just that here, on the other hand, it is implemented, not a picture is superimposed on the world around you, but on yourself.

In general, this is, of course, a good question: which is more interesting — the virtual world in which the real one is mixed, or the real world in which the virtual one is mixed?

If the developer’s hands grow from the right place, then both are interesting. But again, I don’t see any bold experiments. With the same emojis, it was possible to implement a “Mafia”, as some teams that prepared products for Oculus tried to do. But instead of doing something new, experimenting and, you know, feeling high from technology, instead they start cloning, sorry, Pokemon again.

Andrey: They are sure that it’s cool, that it will definitely work. If you only knew how many such projects were shown to me…

ARKit, in fact, is a great technology, which was the result of the integration of Metaio technologies into the Apple ecosystem. Today it is still the easiest and most understandable way for mobile developers to do something with augmented reality. So everyone tries what they can.

Someone raises millions of dollars, but non-target investors then cry bitter tears and say that the developers are bad.

Andrey: A normal story. Someone has to earn money on the development of these stories, someone has to earn money on the result of these stories – these are usually different people. But it’s been a few years.

By the way, there is an opinion that people who run for money to develop AR and VR projects are not so selfish, they simply do not know how to fit into the budget.

Andrey: There are two big different stories.

Firstly, there are people who know how to do AR/VR. They are usually focused on b2b, as the market is clearer. They quite clearly understand who and why they are willing to pay and are ready to implement the customer’s wishes for a reasonable budget.

For example, Russian Railways may want a virtual steam locomotive. They have money, they have a need for a virtual steam locomotive, yes, it may not make any sense. But the fact that it won’t make sense doesn’t matter to you, because you get paid for it. Here is such a craft, like many other stories of custom corporate development.

Secondly, there are people who are focused on b2c and do not understand that there is no point in a virtual locomotive, and they are not able to come up with a story for which people are really ready to vote in rubles. But to communicate with investors, they look back at the only real case — Pokemon, which, in fairness, does not apply to AR.

Maybe that’s the secret?

Andrey: No. The secret is that you need to come up with a new use case that everyone would like, that would be interesting to everyone and would not be sucked out of the finger.

Unfortunately, from the point of view of mass technology, AR today is when we look through the camera window into the phone and look for something there. This is far from an ideal user experience.

It seems to me that the big problem is that Apple itself does not show something that can really be played for a long time, which is convenient to play.

Andrey: Finding a good niche and making a good product in it is not easy. Everything is complicated by the fact that a really new experience is not always easy to recognize. When there is no habit, you can skip something.

I think it will be better later, including from the point of view of devices. We are now at the experimental stage, when Google, Apple and Microsoft are preparing the ecosystem for AR.

Technologically, we have not yet grown up to visors, lenses, and other gizmos that are really convenient for AR. Again, they will not succeed if there is no ecosystem under them. And so far, this ecosystem is being created with the help of the tools that exist, and they are doing it with the expectation not of something fantastic, but of familiar smartphones, of which there are billions on the market.

So, while we are still seeing the first steps in this industry.

How much time do you give to the evolution of augmented reality technology??

Andrey: A full-fledged autonomous device for the head, having an acceptable size and weight, I think, will be in five years. It should be significantly more convenient to use than what we have now, in any case. Otherwise, it will be extremely difficult with the mass segment.

Only in the last two years, for example, Oculus and Vive helmets have turned from the format of a large wired helmet into standalone versions of mobile Oculus GO and Vive Focus. Of course, performance is different there, but the level of content and production is very decent.

I’m really looking forward to what Microsoft HoloLens will turn into, since the device is more than three years old, and no one has surpassed it in functionality. It will also be great to see the development of Google’s idea about AR Anchors, as a logical continuation of a large AR-multiplayer. We also see that Apple is actively moving in this direction, since all their demos were about the interaction of players in AR. But this, of course, is a separate topic for discussion.

Now there are enough problems and nuances in the AR market (for example, with sensors and LED optics), but in five years the market will look a little different, and in ten years it will look about the way we are imagining it now.

Or, on the contrary, in a completely new way, because ten years ago no one could have predicted what would happen in 2018.

Andrey: In fact, we should be sitting on Mars with you right now. This is looking back at the 60s – 70s, when people dreamed of colonizing distant planets, only launching the first rockets into space. They believed that now the movement will go.

Yes, we had to grow apple trees in the red desert.

Andrey: However, we are launching an animoji with a tongue and talking poop. Soon — and in augmented reality.

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From the editors:

By the way, about WWDC.

White Nights St.Petersburg 2018 will be held at the end of June. According to the organizers, it will be attended by representatives of the iOS platform. During the closed session on June 28, they will answer all questions about WWDC announcements.