I’ve been playing ARKit games with my iPad 9.7-inch 2017 model for a few days now and I have a few issues that I want to talk about here. I don’t own any one of the other ARKit-compatible devices, so I can’t directly compare my experience to those.
Not Optimal for Small Spaces
One of the main problems that I have it related to the rear camera. For those of you who don’t know, in iOS AR games, the scene is projected live inside the game. The problem is that the iPad 2017 model (maybe it’s true to iPad Pro models as well, not sure) has a lens with a relatively narrower field of view. This means that what I see on the screen is considerably more magnified compared to what I see in my own eyes.
It’s like having a slight zoom, everything appears closer. The main problem is that in AR, you need to play games on flat surfaces. So for example, I can just sit on the couch in the living room and play games on the table, because I only see the end of the table when sitting on the couch. If the iPad had a wider angle (smaller focal length), it would be much better.
It’s not an issue if you have a large house with lots of space or if you play outdoors. I have a small house, so this is how how found out about this shortcoming. It is a deal-breaker? No, and I can still play, but some games like in AR Sports Basketball, I feel very restricted and barely found a spot to place the basket in the H.O.R.S.E game mode which spawns a large basket.
Of course it comes to the way the game is designed and it’s up to the develop to do the best it can to make sure the Augmented Reality experience can adapt to different spaces, both large and small.
Low Quality Camera Can Impair the AR Experience
My next problem is also related to the camera, in this case, its low-light performance. Of course the AR technology was designed to be played in good light conditions. Without good good light conditions, the camera won’t be able to scan the scene correctly because it needs light to do so.
Now this is not the problem itself. My problem is that when I play indoors, I see relatively lots of image noise. Considering the live feed is part of the game, this can impair the gameplay experience, sometimes by quite a lot. I’m sure that ARKit games will look much better on iPhone 8, iPhone 7 or iPhone X because those phones have a much better rear-facing camera. I’m quite positive that it can also improve the detection of surfaces when playing in less ideal lighting condition, but not 100% sure. The reason I say that is that I tried letting the game detect a surface in a dark room and it wasn’t able to do so. This lead me to an understanding that the better the low-light performance of the camera (e.g. faster aperture, larger pixels) the better the visuals would become.
Let’s not forget, the whole idea of an AR game is to mix virtual objects with the projected physical world as seen by the device’s camera. It’s not that the physical world that is projected on your mobile device’s screen is just a background element, so I do want to see that improved in future iPad version.
Large Screen Size has its Cons
Playing AR games on a large screen has its pros and cons. I’ve decided to buy an iPad because I just couldn’t bare playing ARKit games on a small display. I’ve tried playing one game with my brother’s iPhone 7 Plus and it was just too tiny. I knew from that point on that if I want to enjoy ARKit to the max I need to play it on the iPad, so that’s what I did.
The thing is that some ARKit games aren’t optimized well for the iPad. Some requires you to swipe on a certain place on the screen, which isn’t that comfortable to do when you hold the tablet in two hands. Others are more optimized and just require you to tap on any place on the screen or just build the experience around movement with no touch. Every game is different of course, but developers need to make sure that the experience works well not just on the iPhone, but on iPad as well.
Another thing is regarding ergonomics. For me it was much more comfortable to operate the iPhone in AR than the iPad. The iPad has a large screen, but that’s come with a weight disadvantage. If you play a game for a long time you will feel how the weight affects your hand muscles.
How Good is iPad for Augmented Reality?
Overall, I wouldn’t replace my iPad with and iPhone for AR games. Having a large display is a huge benefit in AR and in my opinion for any game out there. I’m sure some things will be improved in future modes and I’m also sure developers will hear the feedback and optimize their games and improve the usability for iPad devices.
So as I said, I am overall very pleased with the purchase and really enjoy playing Apple AR games (ARkit) on it.