Update: Apple Augmented Reality by Tutorials, First Edition is now available!

Announcing Our New Book
Apple Augmented Reality by Tutorials!

We may still be waiting (and waiting and waiting) for Apple to announce their Apple AR hardware — but you can get started building next-gen augmented apps today!

Our newest book, Apple Augmented Reality by Tutorials, is now 100% complete — and it's the easiest and fastest way to get hands-on experience using Apple frameworks and technologies like Reality Composer, RealityKit, and ARKit, as well as a collection of fun projects for creating various real-world AR experiences.

Read on to hear from the author, Chris Language, on how this book can help you level up your development game:

Why should I read your book?

"I wrote Apple Augmented Reality by Tutorials from the reader's point of view, by putting myself in their shoes and asking myself "What would I like to be able to achieve with ARKit and RealityKit?"

I also tried to keep the projects as simple as possible while still covering the tech as best as possible. Personally, I find it very difficult to learn from complex projects, as you can lose focus and can get distracted from what you're trying to learn."

What are the main pain points this book solves with AR development for Apple platforms?

"This book is designed to give you a fast but thorough education on RealityKit, Reality Composer, and ARKit — but you'll cover lots of other things along the way, including SpriteKit and SceneKit, and how to not only add AR features to your apps, but to make them look and feel great."

What experience does someone need before they dive into this book?

"Right - the reader should have basic working knowledge of Xcode and Swift, as well as some experience with working in SceneKit & SpriteKit. You can definitely follow along if you haven't used SceneKit and SpriteKit before, but knowing how these frameworks function will definitely help."

What can someone accomplish after they've finished your book?

"They'll be able to take everything in this book and apply it immediately to whatever types of immersive ARKit & RealityKit-based AR experiences they want to bring to their apps. Plus, they'll get some invaluable content on object tracking, collaborative AR experiences, face tracking, how to work with materials, and tons of other special topics particular to developing for AR."

How can this book help with a developer's career?

"The concepts learned and tools used in this book will future-proof the reader for the undeniable AR world of the near future. This knowledge applies to things beyond AR, and could be used in other graphical based apps and games too!"

Is there anything you found challenging about working with RealityKit that you can help the reader with?

"Creating a collaborative AR experience was really difficult, mainly because the RealityKit side of things are still very new. It also feels like the RealityKit API is still missing quite a few components. Apple definitely made things easier, but it still feels that there's more scope for improvement, especially when it comes to the networking side of things."

How do you use AR concepts in your own work?

"I've created many different AR experiences for work-related projects. Tools like RealityComposer and RealityConverter has quickly become part of my go-to tools for creating small AR experiences. I also use some of the projects I've created for the book as quick start projects, getting me up and running with various AR experiences more quickly."

Can you share a cool tip from the book with us?

"Instead of using the USDZ tools, Apple also has a new tool, RealityConverter, to help convert your 3D content into USDZ format. The tool makes child's play of the process. The book does however cover both methods, and the USDZ tools option does give you more granular control over converting 3D content into the USDZ format."