Google Tango
Another case of being ahead of its time, Tango was Google’s early effort to bring augmented reality to phones. The problem was the approach. Where modern AR mobile platforms can use the hardware already found within your smartphone, Tango required phone makers to implement expensive camera hardware to build 3D meshes of spaces. While Tango itself was largely praised, the few phones that supported it were criticized for being chunky, expensive, and sluggish. Tango also suffered from the same issues plaguing current AR platforms, in that there weren’t enough compelling apps, and those that promised exciting experiences were half-baked.
Tango was eventually discontinued, but its soul lives on in ARCore, Google’s no-additional-hardware-required software development kit for building AR apps.
