Scene Viewer and iOS?

[jakecjones]

Description

I just noticed that I can use Scene Viewer in the browser on iOS. After walking through the Augmented Reality demo on the model-viewer examples, it doesn't give me an option to launch scene viewer if I am on an iOS device. Not sure how to test specifically with model-viewer but it would be worth it to know if scene viewer can now be launched from an iOS device with model-viewer.

Live Demo

N/A

Version

N/A

Browser Affected

• Chrome
• Edge
• Firefox
• IE
• Safari

OS

• Android
• iOS
• Linux
• MacOS
• Windows

[jakecjones]

HOW TO TEST (outside of model-viewer): google search for "wolf" on safari or google chrome on an iOS device. You should be able to see a "view in 3d" option.

When you click on this it will open up in scene viewer, not iOS ar quicklook.

[elalish]

I believe this only works if you have the iOS Google app installed (of which SceneViewer is now a part). Still, I agree that we should probably enable launching it from model-viewer.

[jakecjones]

Good clarification, I didn't notice that at first. For model-viewer, It sounds like this would also be a good solution for a model that only has a glb format associated. That way you would still get the option to use AR.

[elalish]

Unfortunately, it looks like opening sceneViewer on iOS with arbitrary GLBs is blocked by security.

[milesgreen]

This is just from my observations:

Previously, "View in 3D" from a Google Search result in Safari iOS would open the native iOS AR Quick Look viewer.

Now, "View in 3D" opens the iOS Google app (if you have it) which contains Scene Viewer.

If you don't have the Google app on iOS, then "View in 3D" from Search results links to a URL, still within Safari. You see the 3D model, but the "View in your space" button is replaced with "View in your space with Google app" which links you to the Google app on the Apple App Store.

Seems a shame that iOS users will potentially get pushed to install an app from the Search results, when an AR viewer is already built into iOS. Maybe this is to ensure parity between experiences (USDZ has different features to GLTF), or maybe it's to reduce burden on content owners so they don't have to produce 2 assets? Schema.org already defined a 3DModel type to handle multiple encodings though, which I had assumed Search would use for indexing. I guess Apple should just get on board with support for GLTF and WebXR already.

Totally understanding that this isn't the Model Viewer team's remit though 👍

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From Safari iOS when Google app is installed:

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From Safari iOS when Google app is not installed:

[elalish]

Agreed that's a weird experience; any thoughts @tspiaki? Also agree that the real way forward here is WebXR in Safari. Hopefully before the heat death of the universe.