Technology NEWS Archives - Augmented reality on demand platform

July 22, 2019July 22, 2019

Augmania Recommends: Top 10 Tech Blogs You Should Follow

Ladies and Gents, we’re back with a new edition of the Augmania Recommends series. Last time, we wanted to share with you our favorite places to read about marketing online. As an AR flagbearer, Augmania lies at the intersection between marketing and tech. So this time, we’re shedding light on the top tech blogs.

Since “tech” itself is a broad term, let’s clarify first how this article is going to go. By definition, Biotechnology, CGI production in Hollywood, and spacecraft manufacture are all categorized under tech. However, they aren’t necessarily the scope of our blogpost. Instead, we’re going to focus on consumer tech. Conventionally, consumer tech products are those that reach end-users directly. In other words, consumer tech usually isn’t intended for professional use by large corporations and the like.

Also, there are a few other disclaimers. You will find no TechRadars or VentureBeats here. These are all fantastic websites, but we’re pretty positive you already visit them. Thus, we’ll only share with you one example of such tech moguls. The rest of the blogpost will feature blogs that aren’t as popular. Yet, they offer great value in the forms of industry analyses, expert opinions, and entertaining takes on tech. Plus, for sectors of tech that are booming, we’ll highlight a blog that tackles each of these sectors separately.

All set now! Here are the top ten tech blogs you need to follow

1- The Verge

Alright, we’re kicking off with our aforementioned favorite mogul of a tech blog. It’s none other than The Verge. As a subsidiary of Vox, The Verge is our go-to tech blog for news. Generally, the team is very fast in updating its audience with the latest news from all tech realms. Of course, they also include thoughtful analysis on each piece of news to tell readers their aftermath predictions. In addition, The Verge does timelines for major tech stories spanning months and longer. For instance, the timeline for the recent US Huawei ban is an amazing recap. It explains it all from the very beginning in January of 2018 till this moment and in insightful detail.

Further, The Verge is more than just a source of tech news. The website also has excellent opinion articles on tech and its relationships with science, entertainment, and culture.

Augmania’s Favorite Piece: The Secrets of the Internet

Honestly, you can’t go wrong with beautiful storytelling. This captivating story isn’t what you’d typically see on a tech blog. It’s a tale of a young woman who joins Youtube’s content moderation team during Youtube’s early days. To her, the job sounds like an exciting source of extra cash at first. Soon enough, she starts to face the moral struggles and dilemmas that people of tech face every day.

2- Stratechery

In case you haven’t heard of it before, Stratechery is a brilliant tech blog by tech veteran Ben Thompson. Ben is what we could call a tech philosopher. Throughout his career, he’s worked for Apple, Microsoft, and WordPress. He puts this experience and his unrelenting mind to exceptional use on Stratechery. As a result, his tech blog has become where people go to see all top tech brands dissected. Each dissection leaves readers with plenty of lessons to learn and apply.

Augmania’s Favorite Piece: The Battle for the Home

In particular, this blog post shows the true value Stratechery offers. Ben dives in-depth into how Amazon, Google, Apple, and Facebook are fighting for home devices supremacy. He weighs each’s current chances of winning this war and predicts how the situation can change over time.

3- The Gadgeteer

In 1997, this tech blog started as a haven for founder Julie Strietelmeier to express her love for gadgets. Today, The Gadgeteer is one of the world’s most reliable websites for tech reviews. It tackles all sorts of tech products from smartphones to water dispensers and absolutely everything in between. When it comes to product reviews, Julie prioritizes accuracy in delivering information. That way, her readers can take fair buying decisions and they appreciate the tech blog for that.

Augmania’s Favorite Piece: Julie’s Favorite Gear

As we mentioned, all of The Gadgeteer’s reviews are top-notch. But this is just something else. This article contains the gadgets closest to Julie’s heart and it includes all product types. Essentially, we get to find out the best laptop, smartphone, speakers, etc from the perspective of a lady who has been working in the industry for over two decades.

4- TOPBOTS

Remember when we mentioned we’d have sector-specific tech blogs? Well, AI is more than worthy of having its own blog. And TOPBOTS is just as worthy of your time if you’re interested in the field. The tech blog is a great destination to get oriented with AI concepts such as neural networks. In addition, it regularly examines the use of AI in marketing, education, and healthcare among many other fields.

Augmania’s Favorite Piece: Neural Network Generates Fake Startups. Hilarity Ensues

In this post, the TOPBOTS people generate 85 random startup names through AI. The names were provocatively strange, to say the least. So much so that team members challenged each other to come up with logos and slogans for each startup. The results are hilarious.

5- Enterprise Irregulars

Okay, we may be contradicting ourselves somewhat here. We did say our main focus would be consumer tech. But just read that name. As you can see, Enterprise Irregulars is for beginners. So if you’re just getting started in enterprise, count on this tech blog for everything ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning).

Augmania’s Favorite Piece: Polishing brand ERP

This blogpost is a solid overlook on the current state of ERP. It highlights that customers are mostly satisfied with their implementation of ERP software. At the same time, it explains what’s hindering ERP from full mainstream adoption.

6- Bosch ConnectedWorld Blog

Using the same principle from the latter tech blog, we think you need to read about IoT as well. You see, the Internet of Things is a real-life version of Toy Story that nobody saw coming. But it’s coming in a big way. As a long-tenured IoT leader, Bosch boasts an astute blog that can answer all your IoT questions.

Augmania’s Favorite Piece: 5 Things to Consider When Starting an IoT Project

Ready to start integrating IoT into your business? This blogpost is a short and sweet introduction into how to get your first IoT project right.

7- Forrester

As an organization, Forrester crafts impeccable data-driven research for tech businesses. Hence, it makes sense that Forrester’s tech blog is just as invaluable. The blog combines expert writers from all walks of tech who break down industry obstacles and provide actionable advice. Further, the tech Argus is revered for its annual tech predictions report.

Augmania’s Favorite Piece: An Existential Threat

From Forrester’s CEO himself, this article examines how businesses still aren’t aware of the consequences of poor tech management. Essentially, it’s a form of polite roasting from Forrester. But by the end of it, he offers tips on how business leaders can better manage tech.

8- Lifwire

Since the past few tech blogs were business-oriented, our next entry is entirely for personal use. First off, let’s just take a moment to appreciate LifeWire’s slogan: Tech Untangled. Mainly, blogposts in this magnificent blog fall under three categories: Buy, How To, or Fix. So first, they guide you through which tech products to buy. Then, they show you how to make the best use of them. Finally, if anything goes wrong with your tech, they teach you how to fix it. If there’s ever been a perfect blog formula, this is it.

Augmania’s Favorite Piece: How to Fix a Computer That Won’t Turn On

At times, a VR expert may have no clue why his/her laptop won’t power up. It’s normal and Lifewire gets that. That’s why it provides blogposts like these, offering a full guide into issues that keep computers from working.

9- A Geek with a Hat

Sometimes, people look for things other than insights in blogs. Instead, they could be looking for blogs that relate to their daily lives. On that note, if you’re a techie, then A Geek with a Hat is exactly what you need. A coding master, Swizec Teller uses this tech blog to recount his stories in the tech world. Usually, this tech blog is like Teller’s personal journal that he invites us into every day.

Augmania’s Favorite Piece: What it’s Like to be a Statistical Super Minority in Tech

Ever since his US arrival, Teller has been struggling with people wanting to label him. He thinks he’s more than just a white dude or a Slovenian. And he ponders all about it in this fun and relevant post.

10- Techmeme

Well, TechMeme is not a tech blog. It’s what techies call an aggregator. That is, it combines all the tech news from all top tech blogs in one super crowded homepage. Having that many headlines altogether at the same time can be useful. Or, at least, that’s what avid TechMeme reader Mark Zuckerberg thinks.

July 16, 2019July 16, 2019

Top 3 Business Leaders Who Believe in the Power of AR

Don’t be surprised if we see a Keeping up with the Gates reality TV show soon. With the level of public admiration they receive today, it’s safe to say business leaders are reaching celebrity levels of popularity, if not higher. Nowadays, people leverage every bit of info they can get from influential leaders. Such info includes everything from business strategies to meal recipes to how long they should brush their teeth for. While that may be excessive, it’s still remarkable that this generation majorly takes successful business people for role models.

But if you ask me, it’s these leaders’ outlook on the future that you should be specifically after. That is, you should be on the lookout for their predictions for the next game-changers in business. That’s especially the case when it comes to the tech world. Speaking of which, you need to hear the massive expectations three of the world’s top leaders have for AR.

You see, Augmented Reality has been wowing people and businesses alike for years. It’s economic, creatively satisfying, and it can take up multiple forms according to the task at hand. By all means, AR use cases have been proving valuable. To assert, this latter statement applies to all industries from automotive to education. And the results have been groundbreaking so far.

But if that still doesn’t make you an AR believer, these three world leaders will:

1- Tim Cook

Tim Cook had the incredibly unenviable task of following in legendary thought leader Steve Jobs’ footsteps. To Cook’s credit, he’s been doing an epic job at it for eight years now. So much so that Apple is seeing its highest performance levels ever in the Cook era. For starters, he reimagined Apple’s supply chain before he even became CEO. Truly, this was what set the stage for Apple’s global expansion.

Then ever since Cook’s appointment as CEO, Apple’s finances have been through the roof. In 2018, Apple became the first-ever company to be valued at a trillion dollars. If that isn’t breathtaking enough, Apple’s revenue has almost tripled since 2011. It has gone from $108 billion to $265.6 billion.

While that’s an unprecedented financial success, Tim Cook doesn’t think of it as the most relevant measure of success. Instead, he looks at his team’s hard work as the true measure of success. Indeed, this vision has set him apart as a leader when it comes to culture.

Despite all these hits as CEO, some criticize Cook for a supposed lack of innovation. Most probably, Cook is looking to prove these critics wrong using AR. Plain and simple, Cook thinks of AR as the future of Apple. Particularly, he believes that AR has the power to amplify human performance. Out of this belief, he made this ultra-bold statement:

“AR use will become as common as eating three meals a day.”

Ever since, Apple has been taking big AR strides. Most recently, we found out that ARKit 3 is getting major updates with iOS 13. These upgrades to Apple’s mobile AR initiatives are in line with another Cook prediction. Tim Cook believes mobile AR’s rise will be as significant as the rise of mobile apps. A decade ago, people didn’t understand the value of apps. Now, they can’t live without them. Apple’s resident leader thinks the situation will be the same with AR.

As a leader, Tim Cook is also looking ahead with AR. While no official announcement has been made yet, all signs are pointing toward inevitable Apple AR glasses. Under Cook’s leadership, Apple has over 30 open AR positions. That’s up from only 5 last year. Clearly, Apple’s leader is onto something here.

2- Bob Iger

In his own words, Bob Iger thinks of himself as a classic incarnation of the American Dream. He didn’t have much to his name when he joined ABC as a production assistant. From there, he continued to build his way up until Disney acquired ABC. A few years later, Iger becomes the CEO and leader of Disney.

In that position, Iger has excelled in multiple areas. For one, he has mastered the skill of choosing the right movies for Disney to create. During his reign, Disney released 5 of the top 10 highest-grossing movies ever. In addition, Iger has devoted much effort into Disney theme parks. Apart from opening one in Shanghai in 2016, Iger has been investing billions into overhauling all parks.

But arguably Bob Iger’s biggest accomplishments lie in Disney’s acquisitions under his leadership. Between 2006 and 2019, Disney acquired Lucasfilms, Pixar, Marvel, and 21st Century Fox. So if we ever get a movie featuring Han Solo, Buzz Lightyear, and Deadpool, you have Iger to thank.

Generally, Disney’s leader credits the company’s success to staying true to Disney’s purpose; storytelling. On that note, Iger can’t see VR as a viable platform for Disney stories. He believes Disney experiences should always be real and one word he called VR was “ersatz”.

Instead, he said he’d been spending time in Disney labs fighting Stormtroopers with lightsabers. Of course, that’s through AR. So yes, that confirms Iger is high on AR and that Disney will wow us very soon in AR.

3- Mark Zuckerberg

There’s probably no need to introduce Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook’s dominant leader and 21st-century prodigy is one of the most popular people on Earth. Everybody knows his story with its high points and controversies. But Zuckerberg’s story with AR is unlike the two you’ve read so far. Actually, Zuckerberg wasn’t the biggest AR believer in the world a while back. In 2016, he claimed it would take AR 5-10 years to reach VR’s level.

That’s underwhelming, to say the least. Well, let’s fast forward while just disregarding the fact that VR is in decline. So today, Zuckerberg is actually all in on AR. His biggest issue with AR was that he couldn’t see potential in AR use cases without AR headsets. Thankfully, it only took him two years to change his mind. At that point, he realized that face filters can be a gold mine for Facebook.

Accordingly, Zuckerberg announced an AR platform for creating filters in F8 2017. In 2018’s F8, Facebook rebranded the platform, calling it Spark AR and adding many new features to it. Also, the platform allows creating Instagram and Messenger AR filters too. Today, over a billion users have interacted with Spark AR.

From there, it’s only going to get bigger. Facebook’s manager of AR Camera Matthew Simari says, on Facebook, they believe AR can better connect people. Hence, the company is continuing to integrate AR into other Facebook services like AR ads.

All in all, Mark Zuckerberg says he’s confident AR can be Facebook’s next big thing. Finally, he also confirmed that Facebook is currently developing AR hardware.

July 11, 2019July 11, 2019

AR, The Favorite Tool For Creative People

For millennia, creativity has defined our species. And as our creative capabilities have evolved, so too have our creative tools.

In the Stone Age, our ancestors unleashed their inner creative beings by painting on cave walls. They did that using stones, sticks, and even whalebones. Tens of thousands of years later, creative minds developed and wanted their artworks to be more sophisticated. They wanted to infuse elements like motion and perspective into artworks. Hence, a change was needed to upgrade limited creative tools into more creatively-satisfying ones. And that’s how paintbrushes came about.

As the years went on, countless series of change in humanity’s creative tools followed and here we are today in the age of Photoshop. But could we be on the verge of yet another cycle of change? Are Photoshop and Co. not catching up to our creative needs?

Well, graphic design as a whole may not be as valuable today as it was years ago. Is it dead? Of course not. But it’s a task that humans are beginning to relegate to Artificial Intelligence. Yes, there are many web-based platforms today that do entirely automated logo design. Surely, AI graphic design is only going to get more advanced from there.

So perhaps that’s a sign to creative aficionados everywhere that they should stop worrying about website designs. Instead, they need to give more focus to full-on user experiences. In said experiences, they must account for the experiencers’ environments, backgrounds, and personalities.

That’s precisely what Augmented Reality is all about.

People are going crazy for AR because it puts users front and center. AR is not about showing off aesthetics. Contrarily, it’s about empathizing with users and giving them space to tell their stories.

Delving deeper, here are three reasons we believe AR is the change we need for proper creative output:

1- AR Is Next-Gen MAYA

If that subheading is a bit cryptic to you, worry not. We’ll decode it right away. But first, we’re going to get philosophical for a moment. What makes an idea creative? From a purely linguistic standpoint, an idea is creative if it’s completely new. However, that’s not how we as humans perceive creativity in actuality.

Or at least that’s what Raymond Loewy, owner of one of the 20th century most creative minds, believed. Loewy claimed creative ideas are those that balance between new and familiar. Puns are the most primal example of this principle. They take a familiar word/phrase/name and use it in a new context. In the process, this wordplay gets to stimulate our brains and we think of it as “creative”.

Raymond Loewy called this the MAYA principle which stands for “Most Advanced Yet Acceptable”. Till this day, many people of the creative industry use this principle while generating ideas.

Now, let’s switch gears back to AR. Intrinsically, AR is the overlaying of virtual objects onto real environments in real-time. Does that ring any bells? Respectively, we could think of real and virtual as synonyms to familiar and new.

Thus, the MAYA principle applies to any AR experience. What’s more, you can go as wild as you wish with the virtual content of AR experiences. That is because experiences will always have their real-world spaces for familiar zones.

2- AR Is a Swiss Knife

By all means, AR’s true power lies in its versatility. In daily life, it’s everywhere because it takes up a plethora of forms for a plethora of purposes. For instance, social media filters are a basic form of AR. They don’t take much effort to develop and brands from Netflix to Taco Bell always use them. Of course, audiences all over the world love to play with them. For this reason, filters make up great creative tools for engaging customers.

Then, we have AR print. This cutting-edge tech transforms old-school print in a major way. Essentially, augmenting print is making it scannable via smart devices. When scanned, all sorts of virtual info can be generated. In part, this virtual info could tell a lot more than a simple paper would and in a way more interesting way. So far, we’ve seen business cards, brochures, catalogs, magazines, books, and products converted into AR print. All of these stood out much brighter after being augmented.

Kicking things up a notch, we have wearable AR. Usually, AR experiences that require headsets are utilized corporately. Specifically, managers use them in corporate training. In doing so, they allow employees to learn in unprecedently interactive ways.

If you wish to go bonkers with AR, then you could try bus shelters AR. Yes, that’s a thing. In 2014, Pepsi Max ran a fascinating campaign that utilized this approach. As commuters sat there waiting for their buses, they were greeted by terrifying creatures. The campaign was a massive hit and generated tons of buzz.

To summarize, it doesn’t matter how much your budget is or what your objectives are. You’ll always find a creative haven in AR.

3- AR Can Be Easy to Create

In hindsight, it may seem like an arduous process to develop AR content. However, that’s not the case; especially not in the presence of a platform like Augmania. As a longtime believer in the creative powers of AR, we wanted to build something that makes AR content creation super easy and quick.

First off, you don’t need to write a single line of code. The platform does that for you so that you can give maximum attention to your ideas and nothing else. Plus, the Augmania platform is fully DIY with a user-friendly drag-and-drop basis. As for the assets, it already has a huge library of 3D models, images, videos, and audio for you to use in your AR experiences.

The best part is that people will easily be able to interact with your creative AR content. That’s because it’s a WebAR platform. That is, users need only a mobile browser to engage in Augmania content. In other words, they don’t need to commit to downloading any apps.

So creative people rejoice! Sign up now to the Augmania AR platform and change your creative ways!

July 9, 2019July 9, 2019

Become a Better Parent Using Augmented Reality

In the digital age, parenting is a challenging responsibility, to say the least. Not that parenting was ever not challenging, but technology has brought today’s parents some mighty worries about their kids. Despite all its perks, technology has given rise to cyberbullying, less physical exercise, and dissociation between kids and parents.

Hence, when it comes to upbringing, the argument that tech is a double-edged sword isn’t that sound anymore. Or so believe some experts who claim the cons of raising kids with technology have outweighed the pros. Actually, some have gone as far as calling smartphones home-inhabiting “devils”.

Yet, other experts are of the notion that not all tech is created equal. To them, it’s how we design our tech that makes all the difference. If tech is designed with a focus on human experience, then our kids could be the true winners.

On that note, let’s ponder kids’ use of Augmented Reality.

At its core, AR is about building bridges, not walls. Instead of trapping kids inside fantasy worlds, AR brings elements of said worlds to kids. That way, they can interact with all sorts of virtual objects while staying connected with their real environments. It’s a technology that humanity has dreamed up in movies before even conceiving it.

But that’s just the core. Actually, it’s what developers are creating with AR that makes us believe AR is the perfect parenting companion. So without further ado, here are 4 ways AR can help you become a better parent.

1- AR offers a unique solution to the screen time pandemic

Let’s face it. If you’re a parent, that’s what you’re here for; yet another take on screen time. It’s one of the most dominant buzzwords of the decade. Parents have all sorts of questions about their kids’ screen time. Is it too much? Should they abolish it completely? But here’s an interesting question: is there good screen time and bad screen time?

Well, there seems to be a general consensus. Parents don’t like when their kids spend their time mindlessly racking up scores. Instead, they want their kids to fully engage their brains to improve their cognitive skills and learn valuable info. Plus, they also want to throw physical activity in there. And if that’s the main criteria, then AR is here to help.

Realistically speaking, consuming AR content is categorized under screen time. But at the same time, AR is a great canvas for learning. Best of all, kids don’t get to learn while lying idly. Contrarily, AR experiences encourage them to move around their environment for full immersion.

So could AR be labeled as good screen time?

For instance, take Osmo’s Pizza Co. This incredible game teaches kids to become young entrepreneurs. In Pizza Co, kids get to take over the managerial duties of a pizzeria. These include cooking pizzas, collecting payments, and dealing with customers in general. To become master entrepreneurs, they need to learn to multitask these altogether.

The game teaches them basic mathematics to manage the pizzeria’s finances. In addition, they learn how to read rooms, so to speak. That’s because the virtual customers only interact with their body language to relay their feedback to kids.

The game is suitable for kids from 5 to 12 years old. Intriguingly, it adjusts the set objectives according to the children’s aptitude. So if your kid has a knack for business, he/she will always find a satisfying challenge.

2- AR can make studying easier

One of the most innovative uses of AR is creating an augmented print. That is, to use AR to generate virtual content after scanning any print material. So far, AR aficionados have augmented business cards, brochures, and catalogs. But what if we augment student workbooks too?

Without a doubt, practice is an essential part of study for almost all subjects. To make kids’ studies easier, we need to make practice sources, workbooks, more fun and efficient. One way to do so is to make workbook problems scannable. With that, kids will be able to scan the problems to generate answers. Even, these answers could be in the form of short videos from the kids’ instructors.

Not only would that be engaging, but it could also improve kids’ memorization of learned info. According to a study, the brain area responsible for encoding memory gets almost three times activity from AR content than from non-AR content.

3- AR is a special way to reward kids

By all means, parents should be their kids’ primary motivators. To become so, they must guarantee kids are rewarded for each and every accomplishment. Speaking of which, AR can reward children for creating art.

Remember the augmented print we just discussed? Well, coloring books are another type of print that can be augmented. After kids are done channeling their inner Picasso, their paintings could come to life. Through AR, the kids’ masterpieces would be transformed into 3D animations that they could interact with. Talk about a reward!

4- AR provides a source of edification

Simply, this is where AR becomes of groundbreaking importance to parents. Perhaps, the biggest challenge when it comes to parenting is changing a kid’s behavior. Whether the behavior issues are in the form of increased hostility or laziness, reversing it is a grueling task.

But it could become less so soon with AR. This year, an experiment studied the effects of engaging in AR on behavior. The participants wore AR headsets which virtually displayed a man who conversed with them. After the conversations, participants were asked to pick a chair to sit on.

Astonishingly, 72% of the participants didn’t want to sit on the chair where the virtual man was sitting. Instead, they opted for another chair even though they had already taken the AR headsets off. Essentially, this means that AR can affect users’ behavior even post-AR experiences.

Credit: Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab

Switching gears, there is another way AR can affect behavior. Have you ever heard of the Proteus Effect? It describes the influence a virtual avatar can have on its own creator/human user. Basically, if a user sees his/her avatar physically training and losing weight, he/she would be inspired to train too.

And what better medium to create 3D avatars for than AR? These avatars would be right in your living room, playing with your kids and encouraging good habits. There’s nothing more a parent could ask for, I’d assume.

So are you ready to augment your parenting skills? Sign up now to Augmania’s AR platform and create AR content that unleashes your kids’ imagination!

June 25, 2019June 25, 2019

Hands on The iOS 13 Top Features, Rumors and More!

Getting a bit tired of the current iPhone interface? Well, cheer up, friends! Finally, Apple has just announced iOS 13 at WWDC 2019. With a surplus of software and hardware announcements, Apple’s newest mobile operating system was the star of the show.

Operating on iPhone 6S and beyond, iOS 13 is packed with great surprises. But, before we get to all the cool features, let’s highlight some performance promises from Apple. Aiming to help users “do everything faster”, iOS 13 apps will load twice faster than their predecessors. Mainly, that’s because apps will be smaller by 50% while updates will be smaller by 60%. In addition, Face ID will be 30% faster.

Unfortunately, we still don’t have a release date for iOS 13. However, all signs point toward a September launch along with the new generation of iPhones. Also, beta is available now to developers.

Honestly, it feels like we’ve procrastinated enough. So, it’s time to get to business! Here are the top 6 features of iOS 13:

1- iPhone Goes Dark

There comes a time when a hero must turn to the dark side. After years of popular demand, iPhone will do just that as it gets a Dark Mode via iOS 13. At WWDC, Apple showed off iOS’s new mystic look and it’s gorgeous.

Apple claims the new mode is easier on our eyes. While such a claim is still awaiting scientific confirmation, Dark Mode is still pretty handy. Particularly, the new feature can help in saving battery. For iPhones with OLED display (X and beyond), enabling Dark Mode is literally like turning off excess lights. Hence, users would get to channel their cooler inner dark sides and simultaneously save energy when iOS 13 arrives.

2- Adaptive Battery Charging

How many times have you been through the following scenario? You buy a new smartphone, and to protect its battery, you promise to always unplug it from the charger immediately after reaching 100%. Then, you actually keep your promise for some time. Eventually, though, you miss out a few consecutive times and feel like you’ve ruined the battery. So, you end up letting go. You decide to live out the rest of your smartphone’s life with a bad battery.

Well, it’s a sad story that we’ve all had to live through. Thankfully, iOS 13 is taking a step toward ending that tragedy. Enter, Optimized Battery Charging! Essentially, the feature allows your iPhone to charge normally till it reaches 80%. From there, the phone actually changes the pace of charging. If you’re the kind who leaves a smartphone charging overnight, then your iPhone will adapt to your lifestyle. That is, the battery will take longer to go from 80% to 100%.

Ultimately, the goal is to reduce the amount of time the phone is left at 100% while plugged. It’s at that point that batteries start taking damage. Therefore, Apple presents an innovative solution to this genuine pain with the new iOS 13 feature.

3- Reminders that Actually Remind Us?

Every new iOS, Apple likes to take one of its veteran apps and completely overhauls it. With iOS 13, it’s Reminders’ turn. First off, Reminders is getting a new fancy toolbar. Specifically, the toolbar will serve as a shortcut to make Reminders accessible at any instant. Further, Reminders will be much more organized with better filtering options.

Plus, Reminders will be integrated into other apps. For example, one of these apps is Messenger. Siri, who just received a new more realistic voice, can interfere in your chats to suggest creating reminders.

4- Maps to Brag about

iPhone owners will take every chance they can to brag about any of the iPhone features. Though when it comes to that little feature, they’d just rather not talk about it.

Of course, that feature is Maps. Everyone knows how superior Google Maps is to Apple’s Maps application. Despite that, Apple may be at last shifting the tides. As a part of iOS 13, iPhone users will get a new version of Maps.

Apart from being visually compelling, the new Maps is way more detailed. In essence, it more accurately depicts everything on the maps and not just the roads you drive in. So if you’re passing by a golf course, you will be able to tell so. It won’t look like just some green area.

Another nifty addition to Maps is Folders. Yes, you can now create folders for certain destinations and add all relevant locations to said folders. If you’re settled on a destination, but still aren’t settled on where to go there, Maps’ got your back. Just in case you want a closer look at a certain location, iOS 13’s Maps offers you ‘Look Around’. Look Around is a new feature that allows you to see wonderful live 360 shots of different locations

5- Committed to Privacy

For years now, Apple has treated user privacy as a priority. Indeed, that doesn’t change with iOS 13. In fact, it gets more efficient. At WWDC, Apple announced that iPhone owners will have a new camouflaged way to sign into apps. Easily, iOS 13 users will be able to “Sign in with Apple”.

Chiefly, this feature gives users an alternative to signing into apps with Google or Facebook. Both of which have come under scrutiny for giving away user info in the past. Conversely, signing in with Apple is only going to provide app developers with Apple IDs.

6- AR Empowered

As Google showed off its new AR Search to the world, Apple wasn’t far behind. For at WWDC, AR was a major attraction. As a result, iOS 13 is getting multiple features involving AR.

For starters, Apple introduced ARKit 3. The new AR toolkit is getting major renovations. Of these, people occlusion is especially impressive. Say goodbye to the days of virtual AR objects interacting awkwardly with people in your shots. Instead, virtual objects will lay smoothly behind people.

One of the most universally beloved games is getting some AR love with iOS 13. Minecraft will never be the same again! With ARKit 3, you’ll be able to transport yourself to all your Minecraft creations.

Last but certainly not least, WebAR is reportedly going to be a huge part of iOS 13.

In case you aren’t familiar with WebAR, it’s all the AR fun you know except it’s on the web. Basically, you only need a browser to experience WebAR awesomeness. Thus, there’s no need to download apps or take up storage with WebAR.

Back to iOS 13, it’s reported that Apple’s newest operating system might shed light on WebAR like never before. Most notably, iOS 13 might support getUserMedia in WKWebView. In non-coding jargon, this means that iOS 13 could trigger the camera from inside any app. In turn, this will initiate WebAR experiences from any iOS 13 app. We are keeping our fingers crossed for this one !!

These are the biggest iOS 13 features that we know for now. But there are reportedly more to come as Apple reveals more about the new iPhones! Which new features would you like to see the most?