Photo courtesy Anki
Apple has always embraced apps and games that demonstrate the strengths of its mobile platform, giving them prominent positions in the App Store or even letting them demo onstage at keynote events. Now the company is focusing beyond the screen with games that use iOS as a backbone for real world gameplay. The latest and greatest? Anki Drive.
This AI-enhanced racing game lets you control toy cars using a free iOS app. Each car has a unique personality and identity, and can detect and react to other cars as it zooms around a race track. Apple surprised many of us when it let this stealth startup debut onstage at WWDC this summer. But now Anki Drive will be available in Apple Stores and online starting October 23 for $200.
“The games and toys we’ve played with since our childhood haven’t really changed much in decades — you still see kids with blocks, race cars, and teddy bears,” Anki CEO and founder Boris Sofman said. “You contrast that with the evolution of the video game industry which has skyrocketed and taken advantage of almost every major technological advancement. We thought, why couldn’t you have the best of both worlds?”
Anki does just that, using AI to give videogame smarts like character evolution to physical objects — in this case, toy race cars. Each car is smart on its own, with a 50 Mhz micro controller onboard, but they use Bluetooth LE and the processing power of an iOS device to handle the sophisticated control algorithms that let the car not only know its position on the track, but also react and strategize against other racing cars. You can race friends or family on the track, a vinyl sheet you roll out onto the floor, with each of you controlling your own car using the app, or you can race against a computerized AI opponent. You can also just sit back, set multiple cars on autopilot, and take bets on which AI vehicle — each designed by renowned automotive designer Harald Belker — will win. Positioning on the track, speed, and virtual weapons like a tractor beam or rail gun can be employed to win a game as well.
Trying out Anki Drive for the first time, it took only a few minutes to get a hang of the strategy involved in beating your opponent (in my case, the first to get five shots on another car). It was also clear that it would take practice to race against the harder levels of Anki’s robotic opponents. The more you play, the more your car gets optimized to you personally, both through the way you play and through the digital features you can upgrade your car with.
“We think Apple was pretty excited to see how its mobile device and technology helped unlock an entirely new way to create video games in the real world,” Sofman said. “Mobile devices are a natural frontrunner for the ‘brains’ behind consumer robotics applications.”
Anki’s not alone in this field, though.
Orbotix co-founder Ian Bernstein told WIRED that he thinks this new realm of mixed-reality gaming is a revolutionary experience.
Orbotix makes a Bluetooth-controlled robotic ball called Sphero that can be used in conjunction with about 25 iOS games (it’s Android compatible, too). Through these apps, the ball can transform from a pseudo game of Simon to a zombie killing machine to an artistic tool. But without a smartphone, Sphero is just a regular old plastic ball.
Why would Apple take a shine to Sphero? In addition to offering it in its stores, the company went so far as to create a commercial highlighting the ball’s propensity to inspire creativity.
Sphero isn’t just a toy; it’s a platform in and of itself, with its own API and SDK developers can use to create more mobile apps and richer experiences with the Sphero ball. It is also an educational tool — existing apps let aspiring developers of all levels string together pieces of code to choreograph a series of Sphero actions. And as the commercial shows, Apple also sees the device as being in line with its own company ideals.
Products like Anki Drive and Sphero are increasingly showing that mobile devices aren’t just tiny computers for accessing the internet and making phone calls. They’ve grown so powerful they can now give life to other devices.
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