Google, Apple, Measure, AR

Want to find out how Apple and Google are doing in the AR race? Well you could look to both company’s actual measuring apps, both called Measure.

Whereas Apple’s iteration of this augmented app will be coming with iOS12 (which is rumored to be launching this week), Google has beaten it to the punch by launching its version already. It’s free to download for any Android smartphone that supports Google’s ARCore platform.

Measure uses ARCore’s spatial features to measure real-world objects. By simply pointing your phone’s camera at the given item, you can get a reading of the distance from one corner to the other. You can get readings in imperial and metric units and take photos to bring back up when you’re at IKEA later on.

There’s an important little side-note in the app’s description, though: “Measurements taken within this app are estimates.” Ah.

More than likely this just shuns Google of any responsibility it might have if the app messes up, though we all know ARCore isn’t perfect (and neither is ARKit). We wouldn’t recommend relying on Measure for important tasks, but we’ll definitely be interested to see how accurate it really is.