Here’s a list of the most popular free and paid Apple ARKit apps.
During Apple’s WWDC event, Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering introduced ARKit, boldly declaring that “Apple will have the largest AR platform in the world.” ARKit, which is a toolkit that allows developers to build their own AR apps for iPhones and iPads launched with iOS 11 in September.
Now a new report reveals that in just six months after its release, more than 13 million ARKit apps have been downloaded on iPhones and iPads around the globe.
According to data firm Sensor Tower, the data gathered primarily focused on apps that were ARKit-only apps, and not an app that was ARKit compatible or was updated with ARKit. This likely explains why you won’t see, apps like the Amazon app with its AR View, or Pokémon GO as part of the data.
The data collected broke down AR apps into three categories, ARKit-only Apps, ARKit-only Games, and ARKit-only Non-Game Apps. Within each category, apps were then listed in order of top 10 as either Top Free, Top Paid, or Top Grossing.
So what were the top ARKit apps over the past six months (Sept. 19, 2017 to March 19, 2018)?
AR Dragon (a virtual pet simulator) is listed as the top free ARKit app worldwide across all categories (gaming and non-gaming), and CamToPlan Pro (a measuring tool) was ranked as the top paid app overall.
ARKit Apps
Other apps that established themselves as standouts early on, such as IKEA Place, GIPHY World, The Machines, and My Very Hungry Caterpillar AR, continue to be among the most-downloaded since last fall.
ARKit Games
Data also showed that gaming, lifestyle and entertainment apps have all increased in downloads compared to a similar report back in October, with gaming not only having the biggest jump compared to the last report, but also made up for almost half of the 13 million downloads — a whopping 47 percent.
Utility apps were the second most downloaded category making up for 14 percent of the downloads, and Entertainment apps making up for the third most downloaded apps at 12 percent.
What is most surprising is that even with all of the discussion about how augmented reality will play a big role in K12, higher ed, and corporate learning — the data showed educational AR apps dropping from 7 percent in October of 2017, down to 4 percent in the most recent report.
Perhaps this recent data was one of the motivators behind Apple’s recent “Let’s Take a Field Trip” education event, which highlighted Apple’s commitment to focus on the education market, specifically through augmented reality.
In an interview with VRScout, Jaime Donally, founder of ARVRinEDU and author of Learning Transported, talked about education apps and how she’s not that concerned about Sensor Tower’s recent data report, “I’m impressed with the amount of ARKit apps for education to be honest because edu typically takes a long time to catch up with other industries.” Donally said that “many developers have created products that can be utilized in education – but have only seen their apps categorized as entertainment.”
Donally is right, case in point, many of the ARKit apps from any of the categories outside of Education could easily be gamified and used in an educational setting.
Randy Nelson, head of mobile insights for Sensor Tower, said in a blog post, “From what we’ve seen in our latest analysis, ARKit-only apps continue to grow in terms of installs and the number of experiences available to users.”
Apple’s ambition with ARKit is huge, and according to this latest report, the last six months have been pretty good for the tech giant. 13 million downloads is nothing to scoff at.
