I have been working on ARKit tutorials, and using my iPhone 6s as a build device; the problem is plane detection in my experience does not seem to be as effective as the tutorials I watch (which use iPhone 7).
Have not been able to find anything online about whether plane detection is identical or not for the iPhone 6s vs newer models, does anyone have any similar experience?
Or any online resource clearly stating that plane detection will be identical no matter the supported device used (iPhone 6s and above, iPad 2017, iPad Pro).
To be clear, the question is: is iPhone 6s worse in plane detection vs an iPhone 7 and above?
Thanks.
My biz partner and I do a lot of work in the ARKit space. I have a 6S and he has a 7. We're constantly discussing and evaluating performance/accuracy issues with ARKit and have never encountered a scenario where ARKit plane detection (or any other facet of ARKit for that matter) differed between the two devices.
He was lucky enough to get his hands on an iPhone X for a short time, did some AR testing, and reported that accuracy/detection did noticeably improve. That's likely due to the massive improvements in the A11 Bionic, so I'd expect to see those gains on the 8 as well.
That's a totally empirical take, so ymmv...
I also experiencing sometimes tracking issues with Iphone 6s. Especially when I really really close to an object with the phone, or if I suddenly move my phone camera.
I think on newer devices ARKit works better.
I'll be working on a project in the near future to develop a relatively simple Bluetooth/Gyroscope application. The customer doesn't seem to know whether they want this to work on the iPhone or the iPod Touch and I have no experience working with either of the two- so it's best to assume they'll want it to work identically regardless of device.
I'm getting mixed results in my searches, some are saying that the iPod Touch does have a bluetooth chip or gyroscope and others aren't mentioning it. I assume the version of the device will matter, but I'm not sure what generation I'll be dealing with.
Are there any differences that I'll need to be aware of if I begin development with only one of the two devices? Also, what are the most widely supported development tools; my experience is obviously quite limited in this domain.
A good starting point is the iOS Technology Overview
The iPod Touch obviously lacks the phone capabilities and will more likely not have an active network connection as it only has WiFi. Bluetooth and Gyro will be there on both models (latest generation at least).
I have a EMF meter app, similar to the teslameter source code given by apple. the app works perfectly on the 3gs reading the numbers fine but on and iphone 4 it does not work at all. Is there some major difference in the compass hardware?
The app is based on the magnetic readings from the compass
No, there isn't any relevant hardware differences.
The iPhone 4 also has a gyroscope, but it shouldn't alter magnetometer data.
Which behavior do you have? Any data at all?
How many bogomips (or any other relevant unit) can an iPhone or iPod touch deliver?
Is performance in larger applications, as on normal PCs, more limited to cache thrashing than to number of CPU instruction? Or is there some other limit?
What is a recommended total polybudget for a state-of-the-art game in a plain iPod touch (i.e. not iPhone 3GS)?
Does the ARM-11 in the iPod touch and the Samsung ARM in the iPhone have an FPU with the same performance as that of a normal PC, scaled to the core clock frequency?
The reason I'm asking is that I want to port a game with a physics engine (i'm using ODE). If you know anything else I should look out for, don't hesitate to mention it!
GLBenchmark has published a series of benchmarks for various mobile devices, including the iPhone, iPhone 3G, and iPhone 3GS. For example, the iPhone 3G appears to be capable of rendering 687,000 smooth shaded triangles per second (the best I've actually been able to get in my application is 460,000).
In regards to the CPU, the ARM processor on the iPhone has native floating point support, and even has a vector floating point unit. In comparison to a desktop, I ran a computationally intensive operation (NSDecimal addition) on both my desktop (in the iPhone simulator) and on the device (non-3G iPhone). The desktop (MacBook, white, 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo) did 3344593 operations per second, where the iPhone did 281555. The desktop, which scored 2.64 Gflops on Xbench, was 11.88 times faster than the iPhone. Whether this means that the non-3G iPhone is capable of more than 220 Mflops would require more testing.
Essentially I'd like to know just how compatible are the iPhone and the iPod Touch. I would like to know if I could buy an iPod Touch (and thus save some cash) and develop iPhone apps on it or if I really should spend the extra money and put up with AT&T and get the iPhone.
What exactly is different between the two devices (other than the missing phone part in the iPod Touch).
Has anyone done this successfully? Or am I crazy for even thinking it?
EDIT
I've corrected the references to iPod Touch in the text so that #person-b won't strangle me..
Also, i would like to make sure that I point out the fact that I really am interesting in the feasibility of developing iPhone apps on an iPod Touch.
As #Chaos noted, the iPhone and iPod touch differ in their hardware features. The iPod touch lacks:
GPS
3G/EDGE cellular connection (that is, it can only connect to WiFi networks)
Compass
Camera
Built-in microphone (the second generation iPod touch supports external microphones; the first generation doesn't)
As for the CPU speeds, Apple doesn't publish any kind of spec for that. However, the iPhone 3GS is definitely faster than the current iPod touch, which is a bit faster than the original iPhone and the iPhone 3G. If your app is CPU-intensive, you should test it on an older iPhone.
Another important difference is the networking capabilities of the different devices. If your app never has to connect to the Internet, then an iPod touch is just fine. However, if you're using the network at all in your app, remember that WiFi connections are nice and stable and fast, but 3G and EDGE connections are slow and crappy and prone to intermittent failure. Your app needs to be able to deal with a crappy Internet connection. You don't actually need an iPhone to test this stuff, though; instead, you can write a script to artificially throttle or interrupt your development machine's network connection. Craig Hockenberry posted a good method for doing this, which you can find reproduced here.
As far as general software development goes, getting an iPod Touch is a fantastic way to get into iPhone app development. I live in Nebraska, where AT&T coverage is spotty at best (my friend's iPhone doesn't get a clear signal in my house). You won't get the bells and whistles of a 3GS, but you'll save on the up-front investment.
I recently purchased a MacBook and a 32GB iPod Touch to do just what you're suggesting - get into iPhone app development on a budget. In the end I plan to pickup several more devices, but just to get started it doesn't make sense to break the bank. I've developed Windows and Linux software but I'm new to Objective-C and the Mac platform in general, so I'm expecting a learning curve. I'd prefer not to be forking over $100 per month to AT&T while I get up to speed.
Here's what I paid for new-in-the-box hardware and software from Apple to get started:
MacBook - $1070
iPod Touch 32GB - $428
iPhone 3.0 OS upgrade - $10.70
All told I've spent $1500 (including tax) to have a viable development platform. According to BillShrink the TCO of a 16GB 3GS with an average usage plan is $2800 (http://www.billshrink.com/blog/iphone-versus-palm-pre-versus-android/). Add in the MacBook and you're up to nearly $4000 in the first two years. I got 2X the capacity for $440...
While I agree that going straight to the iPhone provides the most flexibility, I also think that the iPod Touch is a great introduction to Apple's new software platform. You can save up to $2400 (depending upon how much your current cell plan costs) while getting a feel for the development process.
Update:
One major reason to get the iPhone 3GS is to get OpenGL ES 2.0 support. If you want to do any advanced shader-based rendering, the 3GS is the only iPhone that will work. The 3GS is also nearly twice as fast as the 2G iPod Touch for OpenGL ES 1.1 code. Source: http://toucharcade.com/2009/06/20/iphone-3g-s-vs-ipod-touch-cpu-opengl-es-benchmarks/
No GPS
No 3G Chip
Different CPU Speed (depending on model)
No compass (if we're talking 3GS)
No camera.
Other than that, the apps I'm working on work as well on our graphics guy's iPod Touch as well as on the 3G/3GS
Aside from the other features lacking that other people have listed, the iPod Touch also lacks a built-in microphone, so apps relying on audio input are also a problem.
In general, though, the iPod Touch makes a great testing and development platform for general-purpose apps or games.
I started developing apps for the iPhone on my iPod Touch, here these gadgets are really expensive... and that is a bummer..
The only problem i have encountered while developing was the lack of 3G and the GPS because i wanted to see how my apps will work on 3G compared to WiFi and also i wanted to use the Maps Api but the Touch doesn't have the GPS and i had to find an iPhone to test my app..
If you want to start developing i think the ipod touch is a good starting point also, the 3GS is really expensive(here - Romania - is like 1100 euros - 2 year contracts) and the 3G also(still 600 - euros - 2 year).. so if you only want to play with cocoa and build small apps for free... keep in mind the costs.
The first generation of ipod touch didn't had the volume buttons, the second generation has them..just to confirm
One thing to bear in mind is that the second generation iPod Touch has a more powerful processor than the original and 3G iPhone. If the app you're making is a particularly CPU intense one, you may want to pick up an old iPhone to test against.
There are also a lot of used first generation iPhones out there. You don't need a plan to use them to run apps and get on the Internet via wi-fi. If you really need to test against the older iPhones, you should be able to get one used and not pay AT&T for a subscription.
Yes, this would work fine. They will be more even product lines after apple updates the ipod's to the same internal tech specs as the new iphone. The "iPod Touch" is just like the iphone software wise except for the hardware specific apps.
The iphone has a few more hardware features over the ipod touch like the cellular radios of course, camera, microphone, compass (3gs), and GPS.
So if you are not developing any application that uses any of those device features, the ipod touch should serve you well.
A quote from gizmodo.com
The iPod runs Mac OS X like the iPhone does and we have got unofficial word from inside Apple that it runs exactly the same applications. The exact quote: "they use the same damn binaries".
That quote is from an article that is almost two years old now, and I haven't seen anything to suggest it is incorrect.
So as has been said, as long as you aren't trying to develop hardware specific applications then using the iPod Touch should be fine. Though personally I believe if you intend to develop for a platform you should use that platform. I also understand the iPhone is expensive so I don't blame you for wanting to save some cash. :)
Many people have give pretty good answers. But they have really only pointed out the difference and have not said if you should get an iPod Touch or an iPhone.
GET AN IPHONE
It is simple as that.
It does more than an iPod touch as listed above.
You can use it as a phone and replace your existing phone.
Once your game actually sells you will end up getting an iPhone anyway because you are now making money, you will then need to sell you iPod touch at a loss (you dont really need it).
You will build more than one app in the next year and one of them might rely on the iPhone camera, GPS, or even Video, maybe even compass, you will need an iPhone for all this.
You will now want the internet where ever you are to check you sales stats every day when they come out.
Save you money, buy one device, buy an iPhone and sell your old phone.
The September 2010 iPod Touch has 2 cameras and a microphone. It has the same functionality as the iPhone4 apart from the phone part & doesn't have GPS.
I think it's better to spend money on a iPod Touch 4th gen than on an iPhone 4 (unless you need really accurate GPS coordinates in your app).