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> ARCore will run on millions of devices, starting today with the Pixel and Samsung’s S8, running 7.0 Nougat and above. We’re targeting 100 million devices at t

> ARCore will run on millions of devices, starting today with the Pixel and Samsung’s S8, running 7.0 Nougat and above. We’re targeting 100 million devices at the end of the preview. That's...not great? For comparison, ARKit on iOS is going to support 400 million devices at launch (very rough numbers: ARKit runs on any new iPhone Apple's released over the past two years - iPhone 6S/SE/7 - and they sell over 200 million a year). Hardware fragmentation is a tough problem to solve.

dep_b 9y ago
I think it runs on every A9 (iPhone 6S) powered phone and tablet or newer. So more or less every iOS device sold since 2015/2016. Yeah and fragmentation in Android versions is pretty bad. Also the quality of the underlying hardware might be not as consistent as in iOS devices. It relies on a lot of sensors to get it right, not just raw CPU power and a nice camera.
- EddieRingle 9y ago
  > It relies on a lot of sensors to get it right, not just raw CPU power and a nice camera. The Android CDD maintains requirements for sensor accuracy and performance: https://source.android.com/compatibility/android-cdd#7_3_sensors https://source.android.com/compatibility/android-cdd#7_3_sen...
  - richardwhiuk 9y ago
    It does, yes, but the CDD standards are much worse than a 2015/2016 iPhone, or a recent Google Nexus phone. e.g. lots of Android phones basically can't hit low latency audio targets that iOS has been able to hit essentially since launch.
    - Fej 9y ago
      iOS has had a ton of effort put into its audio stack - it was an iPod replacement as well as a phone. Remember when the app was still called iPod? iPod users wouldn't have taken the iPhone as seriously if Apple hadn't put in the work to make audio a first-class citizen. Android doesn't have that pedigree/baggage so it's never been as important.
pjmlp 9y ago
The sad part is that they aren't serious to sort it out. Treble could have been the solution, yet they are still allowing for OEM customizations and the OEM are the ones expected to keep pushing the updates, as discussed on the ADB Podcast. Guess how many OEMs will choose to push Treble updates instead of selling new devices.
- EddieRingle 9y ago
  As I understand it, the OEM modifications will be relegated to the vendor/odm partitions. They specifically hint at being able to push new system partitions directly in the future.
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    1 - One needs to buy a new Android 8 device. 2 - Android 7 has currently about 13% acquisition after one year 3 - There is currently no obligation for OEMs to provide updates 4 - Given the failure of security updates, only being delivered to flagship devices, I believe Google will ship them directly when they actually do it.
    - EddieRingle 9y ago
      1 - Which OEMs will be pushing consumers to buy, according to you. 2 - Right, this is something Treble will attempt to solve. 3 - Which is why Google is making it as easy as possible for them to do so, right down to actually pushing out the updates for them.
      - pjmlp 9y ago
        1 - I guess only Google with its rather expensive Pixel device, and probably Samsung and Huawei flagships only, in the same price category. 3 - I would really like to be proven wrong here. Still waiting for my Android 7 update on a newly bought device.
      - s73ver_ 9y ago
        None of that actually seems to solve the issue of developing updates and pushing them to users, though.
JosephLark 9y ago
The exact same thing stuck out to me as well. Mostly because they had to start the article with this sentence: > With more than two billion active devices, Android is the largest mobile platform in the world. So they'll get it onto 5% of active devices, or one in every twenty. Not great, perhaps not even good. I've not been a fan of android fragmentation for awhile now, and have been surprised that Google hasn't been able to do more to attack the issue. Even when Treble launched, I asked myself... is that all? Rock and hard place I guess. I actively avoid android devices because of the issue. My last android device was a tablet in 2011.
- EddieRingle 9y ago
  > Even when Treble launched, I asked myself... is that all? Rock and hard place I guess. Curious, what exactly were you expecting? There hasn't even been enough time for Treble to play out to see if it brings results.
- i_cant_speel 9y ago
  Personally I would prefer them to target the top devices with a great product instead of delivering a mediocre product that all devices can run.
  - vlozko 9y ago
    That doesn't make it very appealing for app developers, though, if the size of their base is dramatically limited to just people with both the latest and the greatest devices.
    - kemitche 9y ago
      I'm not sure what's unappealing about targeting users that can afford to always have the latest and greatest. That's effectively exactly what you're doing if you choose to Target iOS over Android.
      - mcintyre1994 9y ago
dingo_bat 9y ago
Typical google bs. Why not S7? It runs almost identical CPU/GPU as pixel. And it runs 7.0. DoA.
- kllrnohj 9y ago
  Could be a camera or sensor quality/feature issue. Or could be they just haven't built a lens map for it yet, so they don't have fov and distortion metrics.
- designcode 9y ago
  S7 is a bit old by today's standards
  - MBCook 9y ago
    That was last year's phone. Apple is supporting the 6S phones which will have been replaced twice (7, 7S) after iOS 11 ships.
  - dingo_bat 9y ago
    The hardware is identical to pixel.
izacus 9y ago
Yeah, I don't think shipping for all Androids would have been realistic. AR requires pretty tight tuning for the available hardware stack and I guess Googlers just tuned it for their own phone and the most popular flagship for start. Apple has significantly easier job here - especially since it doesn't need to get OEM buy-in for these kind of things :/
- MBCook 9y ago
  Does this mean that the lower end OEMs may not provide this on new devices at all? Or if they do it themselves that it may be a very low-quality calibration so the feature doesn't work well?
samstave 9y ago
Question on a diff layer: first, 100MM or even 400MM devices is no fucking joke... but Q is: bandwidth to deliver drivel to the devices... not the apps - but how much bandwidth will ads consume over consumed content. If I were a VC, I would be purchasing every-single-pipe-in-existence for the future. We went from pipes-are-pope to content-is-king -- but the fact is that the control of information is in the plumbing ( at the high level ) -- not the holders of attention... they are just firewalls. Facebook is a firewall. Google is a firewall. Reddit is a honeypot. etc... you get the analogy. so... Who owns the pipe. ISPs were vilified... FFs the NSA sent the head of Qwest to prison for not spying... the scientologists refuted the NSA on carnivore (because they were already monitoring the networks for clams) -- the .gov went after the guy who detailed all fibers.. -- how many more examples would you like...
- igravious 9y ago
  > ISPs were vilified... FFs the NSA sent the head of Qwest to prison for not spying... the scientologists refuted the NSA on carnivore (because they were already monitoring the networks for clams) -- the .gov went after the guy who detailed all fibers.. -- how many more examples would you like... Can you explain your last paragraph a bit? It's a bit telegraphese and I'd like to know to what individual things you are referring. Thanks!
  - samstave 9y ago
    Sorry for the delay, been a long day... --- NSA had been trying to install network monitoring boxes in all the places. this was discovered, after a whistleblower from AT&T mentioned this happening in the MUX/IX in the infamous room 641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A --- There is way too much to educate ppl in one post on the evolution to the above, but I can go back decades if I have time - and ppl have interest... Anyway - the NSA was running all over and installing spying boxes... they got caught. The CEO of Qwest was convicted on "tax fraud" or some such after he had the balls to stand up to the NSA and not install their shit. Aside: Qwest communications was founded as a splinter from a railroad company who realized they had right-of-way easments along ALL their rail lines -- which was easy to lay fiber alongside, and then build a comms co on that backbone. Earthlink, which was funded early by key hollywood scientologists, refused to install the boxes as well -- but because they were already spying on all their user traffic to hunt for "clam" people (clam people are those that made fun of scientology due to scientology's belief that humans are evolved from clams - among a great many other weird beliefs... anyway they werent prosecuted, presumably due to holywood big-shot money... etc...) --- There was a student who was able to look up all the public-works filings for all municipal and federal digging plans/permits/etc and wrote some detailed report on the critical network infra of the US, thus revealing its weaknesses -- the report was nabbed as "national security" as "terrorists" might attack it.. (though they didnt really report on the fiber cuts which caused major upheaval and outages in silicon valley) -- but they shut that kids thesis (i think it was a thesis) down... The revolving door with the NSA and silicon valley is wide open, obvious and pretty big... if you want more info. email me... revealing too much on HN is stupid.
gordon_freeman 9y ago
So how come these devices account to "millions of devices" or "targeting 100 million devices"? AFAIK, Pixel devices and S8s combined would be much fewer than 100 million devices. Is this even the correct number?
matthew349hall 9y ago
Is it only Tango?
- vernie 9y ago
  It's not Tango at all.
retox 9y ago
Only on HN would targeting 100 million devices for a preview be seen as small fry.
billius 9y ago
So what's the alternative? not allow your operating system to run on low spec phones? Stop selling low spec phones? of course it isn't gonna run in a supported configuration on some dumb phone from 5 years ago. those people can't afford or don't care about VR.
real-hacker 9y ago
Is there a third-party AR library that can be bundled in an android app, using existing cameras/sensors? I wonder.

dep_b 9y ago

I think it runs on every A9 (iPhone 6S) powered phone and tablet or newer. So more or less every iOS device sold since 2015/2016. Yeah and fragmentation in Android versions is pretty bad. Also the quality of the underlying hardware might be not as consistent as in iOS devices. It relies on a lot of sensors to get it right, not just raw CPU power and a nice camera.

EddieRingle 9y ago
> It relies on a lot of sensors to get it right, not just raw CPU power and a nice camera. The Android CDD maintains requirements for sensor accuracy and performance: https://source.android.com/compatibility/android-cdd#7_3_sensors https://source.android.com/compatibility/android-cdd#7_3_sen...
- richardwhiuk 9y ago
  It does, yes, but the CDD standards are much worse than a 2015/2016 iPhone, or a recent Google Nexus phone. e.g. lots of Android phones basically can't hit low latency audio targets that iOS has been able to hit essentially since launch.
  - Fej 9y ago
    iOS has had a ton of effort put into its audio stack - it was an iPod replacement as well as a phone. Remember when the app was still called iPod? iPod users wouldn't have taken the iPhone as seriously if Apple hadn't put in the work to make audio a first-class citizen. Android doesn't have that pedigree/baggage so it's never been as important.

pjmlp 9y ago

The sad part is that they aren't serious to sort it out. Treble could have been the solution, yet they are still allowing for OEM customizations and the OEM are the ones expected to keep pushing the updates, as discussed on the ADB Podcast. Guess how many OEMs will choose to push Treble updates instead of selling new devices.

EddieRingle 9y ago
As I understand it, the OEM modifications will be relegated to the vendor/odm partitions. They specifically hint at being able to push new system partitions directly in the future.
- pjmlp 9y ago
  1 - One needs to buy a new Android 8 device. 2 - Android 7 has currently about 13% acquisition after one year 3 - There is currently no obligation for OEMs to provide updates 4 - Given the failure of security updates, only being delivered to flagship devices, I believe Google will ship them directly when they actually do it.
  - EddieRingle 9y ago
    1 - Which OEMs will be pushing consumers to buy, according to you. 2 - Right, this is something Treble will attempt to solve. 3 - Which is why Google is making it as easy as possible for them to do so, right down to actually pushing out the updates for them.
    - pjmlp 9y ago
      1 - I guess only Google with its rather expensive Pixel device, and probably Samsung and Huawei flagships only, in the same price category. 3 - I would really like to be proven wrong here. Still waiting for my Android 7 update on a newly bought device.
    - s73ver_ 9y ago
      None of that actually seems to solve the issue of developing updates and pushing them to users, though.

JosephLark 9y ago

The exact same thing stuck out to me as well. Mostly because they had to start the article with this sentence: > With more than two billion active devices, Android is the largest mobile platform in the world. So they'll get it onto 5% of active devices, or one in every twenty. Not great, perhaps not even good. I've not been a fan of android fragmentation for awhile now, and have been surprised that Google hasn't been able to do more to attack the issue. Even when Treble launched, I asked myself... is that all? Rock and hard place I guess. I actively avoid android devices because of the issue. My last android device was a tablet in 2011.

EddieRingle 9y ago
> Even when Treble launched, I asked myself... is that all? Rock and hard place I guess. Curious, what exactly were you expecting? There hasn't even been enough time for Treble to play out to see if it brings results.
i_cant_speel 9y ago
Personally I would prefer them to target the top devices with a great product instead of delivering a mediocre product that all devices can run.
- vlozko 9y ago
  That doesn't make it very appealing for app developers, though, if the size of their base is dramatically limited to just people with both the latest and the greatest devices.
  - kemitche 9y ago
    I'm not sure what's unappealing about targeting users that can afford to always have the latest and greatest. That's effectively exactly what you're doing if you choose to Target iOS over Android.
    - mcintyre1994 9y ago

dingo_bat 9y ago

Typical google bs. Why not S7? It runs almost identical CPU/GPU as pixel. And it runs 7.0. DoA.

kllrnohj 9y ago
Could be a camera or sensor quality/feature issue. Or could be they just haven't built a lens map for it yet, so they don't have fov and distortion metrics.
designcode 9y ago
S7 is a bit old by today's standards
- MBCook 9y ago
  That was last year's phone. Apple is supporting the 6S phones which will have been replaced twice (7, 7S) after iOS 11 ships.
- dingo_bat 9y ago
  The hardware is identical to pixel.

izacus 9y ago

Yeah, I don't think shipping for all Androids would have been realistic. AR requires pretty tight tuning for the available hardware stack and I guess Googlers just tuned it for their own phone and the most popular flagship for start. Apple has significantly easier job here - especially since it doesn't need to get OEM buy-in for these kind of things :/

MBCook 9y ago
Does this mean that the lower end OEMs may not provide this on new devices at all? Or if they do it themselves that it may be a very low-quality calibration so the feature doesn't work well?

samstave 9y ago

Question on a diff layer: first, 100MM or even 400MM devices is no fucking joke... but Q is: bandwidth to deliver drivel to the devices... not the apps - but how much bandwidth will ads consume over consumed content. If I were a VC, I would be purchasing every-single-pipe-in-existence for the future. We went from pipes-are-pope to content-is-king -- but the fact is that the control of information is in the plumbing ( at the high level ) -- not the holders of attention... they are just firewalls. Facebook is a firewall. Google is a firewall. Reddit is a honeypot. etc... you get the analogy. so... Who owns the pipe. ISPs were vilified... FFs the NSA sent the head of Qwest to prison for not spying... the scientologists refuted the NSA on carnivore (because they were already monitoring the networks for clams) -- the .gov went after the guy who detailed all fibers.. -- how many more examples would you like...

igravious 9y ago
> ISPs were vilified... FFs the NSA sent the head of Qwest to prison for not spying... the scientologists refuted the NSA on carnivore (because they were already monitoring the networks for clams) -- the .gov went after the guy who detailed all fibers.. -- how many more examples would you like... Can you explain your last paragraph a bit? It's a bit telegraphese and I'd like to know to what individual things you are referring. Thanks!
- samstave 9y ago
  Sorry for the delay, been a long day... --- NSA had been trying to install network monitoring boxes in all the places. this was discovered, after a whistleblower from AT&T mentioned this happening in the MUX/IX in the infamous room 641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A --- There is way too much to educate ppl in one post on the evolution to the above, but I can go back decades if I have time - and ppl have interest... Anyway - the NSA was running all over and installing spying boxes... they got caught. The CEO of Qwest was convicted on "tax fraud" or some such after he had the balls to stand up to the NSA and not install their shit. Aside: Qwest communications was founded as a splinter from a railroad company who realized they had right-of-way easments along ALL their rail lines -- which was easy to lay fiber alongside, and then build a comms co on that backbone. Earthlink, which was funded early by key hollywood scientologists, refused to install the boxes as well -- but because they were already spying on all their user traffic to hunt for "clam" people (clam people are those that made fun of scientology due to scientology's belief that humans are evolved from clams - among a great many other weird beliefs... anyway they werent prosecuted, presumably due to holywood big-shot money... etc...) --- There was a student who was able to look up all the public-works filings for all municipal and federal digging plans/permits/etc and wrote some detailed report on the critical network infra of the US, thus revealing its weaknesses -- the report was nabbed as "national security" as "terrorists" might attack it.. (though they didnt really report on the fiber cuts which caused major upheaval and outages in silicon valley) -- but they shut that kids thesis (i think it was a thesis) down... The revolving door with the NSA and silicon valley is wide open, obvious and pretty big... if you want more info. email me... revealing too much on HN is stupid.

gordon_freeman 9y ago

So how come these devices account to "millions of devices" or "targeting 100 million devices"? AFAIK, Pixel devices and S8s combined would be much fewer than 100 million devices. Is this even the correct number?

matthew349hall 9y ago

Is it only Tango?

vernie 9y ago
It's not Tango at all.

retox 9y ago

Only on HN would targeting 100 million devices for a preview be seen as small fry.

billius 9y ago

So what's the alternative? not allow your operating system to run on low spec phones? Stop selling low spec phones? of course it isn't gonna run in a supported configuration on some dumb phone from 5 years ago. those people can't afford or don't care about VR.

real-hacker 9y ago

Is there a third-party AR library that can be bundled in an android app, using existing cameras/sensors? I wonder.