The first AR effect of the short video social network debuts on a single device, although it is only the beginning of a series of new features that will arrive in the app.
TikTok launched its first augmented reality filter. At the moment it is only available for a limited number of users, although the app of Chinese origin plans to include more in the future. The debut of the show is, it must be said, somewhat late: a kind of piÃąata appears on the screen that explodes, releasing confetti and then balloons celebrating the arrival of 2021.
Like other effects with augmented reality, the proposal is to inject virtual images into real environments, as you can see in the following tweet.
Throughout 2020 Google did the same, allowing us to put in the living room of the house, or anywhere the camera focuses, from animals to works of art. In TN Tecno we already show you how to do it in that case, and this time we will talk about the filter that TikTok has just launched.
How to use the TikTok AR filter
Before starting, it is important to make a caveat: the first augmented reality effect of TikTok can only be enjoyed by owners of an iPhone 12 Pro phone. Why is this restriction? This is a device that has a LIDAR sensor, a technology that allows identifying the distance between a laser emitter and an object. For example, autonomous cars have this advance to circulate without the presence of a human driver at the wheel.
To use the effect on TikTok, meanwhile, you have to have one of those phones that, by the way, are the most expensive of the iPhone 12 series. However, TikTok says that more news will arrive in that field throughout the year with “more innovative effects”.
Bypassing blockades in different countries, especially in India and the United States; TikTok was the most downloaded app worldwide in 2020. It has nearly 800 million active users.
As stated on the site The Verge, the Chinese social network, managed by ByteDance, is not the only relevant company that has its eyes set on LIDAR technology, in this case, included in the iPhone Pro. Snapchat, recognized for its filters augmented reality, already added support for such technology in October, permitting makers to make their own improved AR channels for the application.