ARKit 3 features restricted to devices powered by Apple’s latest A12 processors

Apple yesterday unveiled ARKit 3, adding support for features like people occlusion, motion capture, multiple face tracking, and much more. During a developer session on the new ARKit platform today, Apple offered additional detail on the functionality, including that it will be limited to only the most recent iPhones and iPads.

Apple said today that ARKit 3 features will only be supported on iPhones and iPads that are powered by an A12 Bionic processor or newer. Up until this point, ARKit has been supported on iOS devices going back to the iPhone 6S and 5th generation iPad.

The detail is also buried at the bottom of Apple’s developer webpage highlighting its new augmented reality features:

People Occlusion and the use of motion capture, simultaneous front and back camera, and multiple face tracking are supported on devices with A12/A12X Bionic chips, ANE, and TrueDepth Camera.

This means that the latest and greatest ARKit features are supported by the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, iPhone XR, and the 11-inch and 12.9-inch 2018 iPad Pros. This is a relatively big restriction, but one that makes sense when you consider the power required by these new ARKit 3.0 features.

Here’s how Apple describes ARKit 3:

ARKit 3 goes further than ever before, naturally showing AR content in front of or behind people using People Occlusion, tracking up to three faces at a time, supporting collaborative sessions, and more. And now, you can take advantage of ARKit’s new awareness of people to integrate human movement into your app.

You can read more about ARKit 3 in our full coverage from yesterday.

Read more:

• Apple unveils ARKit 3 with people occlusion, motion capture, multiple face tracking, and more
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• iOS 13 tidbits: Smart charging, auto close Safari tabs, Siri voice improvements in Maps, more
• Hands-on: This is what Dark Mode looks like in iOS 13 [Gallery]
• This is the new volume indicator in iOS 13

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