Dreaming & Coding in an Augmented Reality
By: Tori Curtis
Tags: AR, Freelancing, Software Development, Augmented Reality, Mobile App Development

Dreaming & Coding in an Augmented Reality

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In 2014, Tony Morales hadn’t written a single line of code for mobile. Now, he’s an award-winning AR mobile developer, helping companies build the future with augmented reality. He’s turned a few heads (Apple, HBO, Axios) with his AR apps — like the one that allows you and a friend to play a game of pick up basketball outside, without the ball or hoop. Or the one that uses AR to visualize music — in your living room (yes, it’s possible for your couch to transform into Kanye’s latest beat).

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple planting augmented flowers with Tony’s iScape app. Team up with builders like Tony. Apply to become an A.Teamer.

Before Tony started dreaming and coding in an augmented reality, he was a mechanical engineer, building Motorola cell phones. An MBA and a couple corporate marketing jobs later, Tony decided to learn to code. He built his own app, only to discover that in tech, when your innovation’s “on time,” it’s actually late. So he moved on from location-based tech to discover the world of augmented reality. Here are our top 3 highlights from A.Teamer, Tony Morales:

#1 The Future is Augmented, and it’s Coming Sooner than You Think.

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“I think what really interested me in terms of AR tech itself is, I could, just dream about 100,000 different ways 1,000 different products that I could build — using augmented reality as the base level. I think that it’s really going to come to touch every aspect of our lives in terms of the types of products we use.

AR is a humanizing technology, whereas for the past few decades, a lot of what we’ve been doing online is sitting behind a screen and typing — and then posting something somewhere. Video has really taken off, especially in the past year or so, with everybody being remote — but live video streaming video is something that’s still relatively new. We’re getting a little bit more personal with live video streaming. I can see and react to the emotions I’m reading from your face in real time. And I can react to how you’re listening to me, in real time.

Four examples of simple, web-based AR built with WebXR. Team up with builders like Tony. Apply to become an A.Teamer.

I think, AR will really start benefiting us once we have things like hand recognition, which there’s already the basis for today. When I can interact with a digital object using my hands so there’s no touchscreen and there’s no typing. Soon, when we don’t rely on our phones for AR, there won’t be a screen in the way between the real world and the augmented world. We will be interacting and pushing things around that aren’t quite there —they’re augmented reality objects.”

#2 The Day We Stop Holding Our Phones to Use AR is the Day it Becomes the Future.

The major hurdle, right now, is that using an AR experience while holding up a phone isn’t ideal. It’s jarring to tap on my phone to interact with some augmented reality thing that’s behind it. I think that we’re still several years away from when that hurdle going away.

AR demo of gesture-based controls using ARKit 3 & person segmentation. Team up with builders like Tony. Apply to become an A.Teamer.

The moment we have a powerful and accessible solution, like AR glasses for example, we’re going to see a huge increase in usage in AR apps and we will start to see businesses building their products and services around it. In the meantime, what I try and do, is build fun things like CyberWave or like an AR basketball game — things like that. And I kind of just go through the documentation and see what capabilities are built into the different platforms.

Surprisingly, there are some low level, new additions to API’s and SDKs that don’t get a lot of limelight. They don’t get a big demo, but recently there have been significant building blocks towards that eventual AR future.

A quick little example that Apple just added is sensor functionality that can have AR implications. In the AirPod Pros you now have capability as a developer to measure, and precisely replicate whether somebody is shaking their head in a certain direction or if they’re nodding their head. You can then tell how somebody’s head is moving and create algorithms to say, “they just shook their head ‘No’” or “They just nodded yes.” That’s an example of a small change that is kind of hidden away in documentation.

Using hand recognition to replace planes recognized as windows with images. Team up with builders like Tony. Apply to become an A.Teamer.

Having devices that understand a simple nod, or shaking your head, opens up a whole bunch of potential use cases. They’ll get closer to a point where we’re not touching a touchscreen. looking through a phone to see the augmented reality view behind it. We’re essentially just gonna be looking at things and using our hands to touch things or manipulate them or push buttons — or shaking your head yes or no to make confirmations or skip songs.”

#3 Share What You Build. Get it Out into the World.

“Most people think, ‘Oh, I just built this little weekend project and nobody is going to care,’ or ‘it’s ugly’ — or some other excuse. For me, putting my stuff out there has been a huge part of growing my business — and my skill set.

Sharing your stuff also expands your network. People reach out —even if it’s just a little test on Github or a screen recording of a beta app.I’ve met around 100 people from sharing stuff that developers either use to start their own products or even students who use it for a school project.

Tony is on a live A.Team mission, building a breath pacer app on iOS, with biofeedback from HRV sensors (Polar Chest strap, Apple Watch, Oura Ring). Want to team up with builders like Tony? Apply to join A.Team.

Writing about what I build has also been huge for me — once every couple of weeks or couple of months, I’ll write something and put it on LinkedIn or my website. And since AR is difficult to describe, sharing pictures and videos are much more powerful in conveying a concept.

Engineers, founders, students, and even co-founders looking for a technical co-founders have all found my videos and reached out. Sometimes I’ve even forgotten about a project, and two years down the road, they’ll find it and either want to pick your brain, or they’ll want to hire you, or they want to partner with you. I think that that’s one of the basic building blocks that has helped me build up my business.

I would recommend Twitter, but I think it helps that augmented reality is still very much a niche, so I use these hashtags that nobody else in the world is using or looking for, except for the other developers, and the founders, or the people at the research and development divisions of tech companies are using.”

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