8th Wall Now Works Across All Major iOS Apps Including Instagram, Snapchat and More
Tags: Instagram, 8th Wall, Augmented Reality, Webar, iOS App Development

The massive reach and frictionless experience you know and love about 8th Wall WebAR just got even better! With the new iOS 14.3 update, which brings camera access to WKWebView, your WebAR experiences now work in all major iOS apps, including Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Messenger, LinkedIn, and Chrome — increasing your discovery and reach to the 728 million iPhone users worldwide.

Easily share and open 8th Wall WebAR experiences on apps such as Snapchat.

8th Wall Works Wherever the Web Is

8th Wall WebAR already has a massive reach of roughly 2.9 billion Android and iOS devices and has the least amount of friction for users to engage with your augmented reality experience with just a click of a link to access it. While iPhone users were previously well-supported in Safari and in apps like Twitter and Slack, which use SFSafariViewController web views, the latest iOS update now lets you meet your iPhone audience wherever they spend their screen time, in all of their favorite apps.

With iOS 14.3, applications that use WKWebView can now run 8th Wall WebAR experiences. This of course includes the most popular social media apps, but it also means that iPhone users can experience WebAR content within any iOS app or even in the browser of their choice. This update removes even more friction to access AR experiences, allowing users to get directly to the experience no matter where they are with just the tap of a link.

Supercharge Your Discovery in Social Networks

Now that 8th Wall WebAR can be easily accessed within social media platforms, you can boost discoverability of your WebAR content by including a link to it in your page bio, or promoting WebAR experiences with social media advertisements and sponsored content. If you’re posting a story on Instagram or Snapchat from a verified account, you can add a “Swipe Up” link that instantly launches your WebAR experience.

Users can now easily discover 8th Wall WebAR experiences in social apps such as Instagram.

Easily Add AR to Any Existing Native Application

You can now add AR, including World Effects, Face Effects and Image Targets, to your mobile app with 8th Wall. Embed WebAR inside of your mobile app as a link or iFrame and leverage the power and freedom of the web by integrating external APIs (such as analytics) within your WebAR content. Since you can make instant updates to any WebAR project, you will also benefit from faster development cycles and have complete control over the launch schedule of your project.

8th Wall Is Ready to Support iOS 14.3 WKWebView

With 8th Wall’s own release (15.2) we have added support for WKWebView on devices running iOS 14.3 and higher and updated our open-source library XRextras. 8th Wall’s XRExtras library provides modules that handle the most common WebAR application needs, including the load screen, error handling and social link-out flows which direct users to the right place, maximizing accessibility of your WebAR projects from these apps. With the release of 15.2, we have updated XRextras with the necessary changes to our intelligent routing to deliver the right messages to users wherever they are including users who are running iOS 14.3 and accessing apps that make use of WKWebView.

We can’t wait to discover your WebAR experiences in more places! Log in or start a free trial here.

Learn more about these updates in our Documentation.

🙌 A big thank you to our developer community for consistently providing us with helpful insights and critiques on our software. We’re continuing to develop and iterate based on the valuable feedback that you provide us.