Apple to Offer Presentation on ARKit at This Year's Game Developers Conference

Wednesday February 7, 2018 12:09 pm PST by Juli Clover

Apple will be hosting a session at this year's Game Developers Conference for the first time, offering an introduction to ARKit, its augmented reality platform for developers.

The session will be presented by Michael Kuhn, who leads Apple's ARKit engineering team.

gdc2018
Entitled "Introduction to Apple's ARKit: Best practices and recent updates," the talk will cover core concepts of the ARKit framework and the ARKit API. It's designed to teach game developers how to get started with ARKit, and it will cover ARKit best practices.

This session introduces core concepts of the ARKit framework, it's underlying principles, and the ARKit API. It explains how to get started with ARKit using the different tracking and scene understanding capabilities as well integration into rendering/game engines. The session also highlights best practices for AR like starting an experience, placing objects in the real world, interacting with them and implications for games. In addition it explains basic concepts and challenges of AR and Computer Vision to help avoid common pitfalls and allow the creation of great experiences.

Apple has not previously offered developer sessions at GDC, but this is the first GDC since the launch of ARKit and Apple is likely hoping to get more game developers interested in implementing augmented reality features.

ARKit was introduced as part of iOS 11 back in September of 2017, and since then, developers have incorporated augmented reality features into more than 2,000 apps. Major improvements are coming to ARKit with the launch of iOS 11.3 and ARKit 1.5, which may come out right around when GDC takes place and will likely be a topic of discussion.

ARKit 1.5 can map irregularly shaped surfaces for better detection of ambient surroundings, it can recognize and map vertical surfaces like walls and doors, and it includes an image detection feature that works on everything from movie posters to bar codes.

The 2018 Game Developers Conference will kick off on March 19 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, and it will last until March 23.

Tag: ARKit

Popular Stories

iPhone Users Who Pay for iCloud Storage Get Two New Perks on iOS 27

Thursday July 2, 2026 6:10 am PDT by Joe Rossignol

If you pay for certain iCloud+ storage plans beyond the 5GB that Apple offers for free, you will receive two more perks on iOS 27 at no additional cost. A summary of the two new iCloud+ perks on iOS 27:Increased daily usage limits for some new Apple Intelligence features, including image generation in the revamped Image Playground app. HomeKit Secure Video cameras receive generated video...

• 51 comments

Apple Just Released a New Product

Thursday July 2, 2026 8:04 am PDT by Joe Rossignol

Apple's first product release of summer 2026 occurred this week, but do not get too excited, as it is merely the Beats Solo Buds in a new color. Beats Solo Buds are now offered in orange through Best Buy in the U.S., with availability set to expand to 7-Eleven stores in Japan on July 4. Apple already offered orange Solo Buds in India for free with the purchase of an iPhone 15 or iPhone 15 ...

Apple Facing One of Its Worst Leaks Since the iPhone 4

Thursday July 2, 2026 9:53 am PDT by Joe Rossignol

Apple supplier Tata Electronics recently suffered a cyberattack that resulted in thousands of confidential files being published on the dark web, and this reportedly included some photos and documents related to the upcoming iPhone 18 Pro. We have elected not to share any of the leaked photos in this story due to the illegal nature in which they were obtained, but they can easily be found...

Top Rated Comments

AppleInLVX

110 months ago

It bugs me that dinosaur isn't using the same sun as the players. Hm.

Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Markoth

110 months ago

It bugs me that dinosaur isn't using the same sun as the players. Hm.

Seriously, how did nobody notice that before they released that image.

Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Lill-Q

109 months ago

OK explain what am i missing here, how much more is there to a console than CPU/GPU and a controller. The controller on Switch is nowhere near a good controller, you can buy a good controller and pair it easily with an AppleTV. On the Go gaming can be easily done on your iphone. Plus mobile gaming is a totally different market, i am trying to discuss a "good" Micro console here. Nintendo Switch is neither. The biggest reason for its success is not mobility but availability of good games even many AAA titles. Look at Wii U gamepad. It had portability but the games are no good. Wii U failed for teh same reason, lack of good games, and what can serve good(AAA) games better if not good hardware?

Another example of this is the success of NES Classic launch. NES has great number of good games, even some of Nintendo's own IP is superb on NES. The NES Classic relaunch succeeded piggy backing on the old time gamers Nostalgia about NES Classic and availability of good games. which also wasnt portable but small enough to carry in your bag to your friends place. along with regular size NES controllers.

I agree that good games is the no.1 reason for the success of a console, but you can't say that because Apple TV has better CPU/GPU than the Switch it is a more capable console. Again, it doesn't even come with a game controller. If you want to compete on the stationary console market, first make something that rivals the best in that field, PS4 Pro/Xbox One X.

Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)

pankajdoharey

110 months ago

Very nice Apple has to up its game among Game Devs. They have a very capable Gaming Console in AppleTV with power far superior to Nintendo Switch or Sony PS3 but they are unable to sell it as a capable game console to either users or devs, which feeds the loopback cycle of lack of good AAA game content. It burns my heart looking at Nintendo Switch being an inferior hardware making it and a superior hardware like Apple's A'series chips not able to succeed in the gaming market.

Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)