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Google’s bringing augmented reality support to Instant Apps

Google’s bringing augmented reality support to Instant Apps

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Shoppable products in AR straight from search results

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It’s been two years since Google introduced Instant Apps, a Google Play feature that lets users try an app without downloading it. While the format has been mostly popular with game developers, today, Google announced at its annual I/O developer conference that Instant Apps will soon support ARCore, allowing users to interact with augmented reality apps without having to download them.

The experience will also be more closely integrated with search rather than within Google Play or in-app advertisements. For example, soon, users will be able to search for shoppable items and see a link to an Instant App that lets them place the products in front of them in augmented reality — much like the Ikea Place app that lets you virtually trial furniture pieces in your home.

Tapcart, a Google Play Instant early partner, gave The Verge a brief demo of this feature. The company allows businesses that use Shopify to create a shopping app and speed up the mobile shopping process. With the new Instant App update, retailers who have a Tapcart-powered app may see their items show up on a Google search result where shoppers can check out a product in AR for a closer look from various angles. They can also purchase the item via Google Pay without going to the retailer’s site or downloading the app, or capture an image or video of the product and share with a Google Play Instant link.

The experience is a bit limited at launch — you can’t try products like sunglasses on your face like an Instagram or Snapchat filter — but it does bring another layer of ARCore closer to everyday interactions users might have on the web, assuming you have a device that supports the platform.

On iOS using Apple’s ARKit, companies like Amazon have enabled an AR shopping experience with a mode that lets you place objects around your house, such as kitchen tools and toys. Amazon hasn’t released data on whether this new feature has influenced or boosted sales since the launch last November. Personally, I’m not yet convinced that this is how users want to shop online for anything other than furniture or art that needs to be realistically visualized in the home. But Google’s ability to tie the experience straight into search results through Instant Apps may help consumers become more familiar with this new shopping behavior. At the very least, it might be fun to randomly toss shirts and shoes all over the sidewalk.