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Google leaves Playground and its AR Sticker Playmoji behind
Though it will still work on older phones, the Pixel 4a and later won't get it
Over the better part of the last week, we've been investigating the curious case of the Pixel 4a and Google's Playground app. Interestingly, while the Pixel 4a ships with Playground pre-installed, the feature isn't actually available in the built-in camera app, as it is on other Pixel devices. According to Google, that's intentional, and while Playground will continue to be supported on previous devices, Google is moving beyond the app with its future AR experiences.
Google Playground, formerly known as AR Stickers, has been trickling down to OEM Android handsets ever since its exclusive launch on Pixel phones last year. Up until this point, most of Motorola's current phone lineup have received Playground stickers with Android One variants representing a big glaring exception, but not anymore. A new Moto Camera 2 update finally brings Playground to the Motorola One series.
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- Our friends at 9to5Google noticed a neat addition for Pixel 3a and 3a XL owners. They can now use Playmojis in selfies, bringing Google's budget devices in line with its other phones. Playground 2.6 offers them a little onboarding experience with the new feature and highlights the selfie button in the bottom left corner of the AR camera interface.
Google is introducing a system-wide dark mode with Android Q and is hard at work to get as many apps as possible in line for the stable launch. While it already implemented the eye-soothing theme on many apps like Calendar, Phone, Messages, and Drive, other apps are still notably lacking one, like Gmail. On Wednesday, Google officially introduced Playground as the newest member of the dark mode club, although the AR stickers app possibly has had it for a while already.
Tomorrow, Japanese moviegoers will be able to get their tickets punched for "Pokemon Detective Pikachu," the first live-action film based on the franchise. Select theaters in the United States will have screenings starting May 9. But if you want to get acquainted with the three-dimensional fluffball that is Ryan Reynolds... I mean, Pikachu, you can do so with Google's latest Playmoji pack for Playground.
After a few years of ups and downs with VR and AR, Google has achieved some notable wins, most recently with the Childish Gambino dance off. Naturally, they're not stopping there, and the latest update to the Playground app (formerly AR Stickers) shows some of what's in store. There will be integration to allow for furniture viewing and shopping, an informative life-sized collection of animals, and a special celebration for International Women's Day.
Every so often, Motorola updates its camera app with bug fixes and maybe a couple of new features. This latest Moto Camera update is rather hefty, adding several new features. Highlights include a selfie portrait mode for all Motorola devices now, AR stickers for the Moto Z3 and Z3 Play, and a nifty watermarking feature.
The evolution of AR Stickers, Playground, was announced during the Pixel 3 event, and along with it came four new Playmoji packs for Weather, Signs, Sports, and Pets, with two more promised for Marvel and Childish Gambino. However, these were all supposed to be exclusive for the Pixel 3. But as we have learned over the years, the word "exclusive" might be very accurate sometimes, but could be circumvented with a simple APK file in others. That's the case here.
[Update x2: APK Download] Google's AR Stickers app is now Playground, with four new 'Playmoji' packs
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- Google has officially unveiled Playground in a blog post that details some of the feature's new additions, including real-time Playmoji suggestions based on the scene you're in and the ability to use the front-facing camera, which Google employee Rajan Patel demonstrated in a tweet.
Ahead of its hardware event today, even Google is leaking its own announcements. Earlier this morning, the company posted a $25 off deal when purchasing a Chromecast Ultra and not-yet-announced Google Home Hub. Now, it's posted to the Play Store four new AR "Playmoji" packs for its newly-renamed Playground app, none of which can currently be downloaded.
AR Stickers launched with a handful of sticker packs, all of which were included in the main app's download. Over time, however, Google kept making each pack separate apps that you'd have to download to use, leaving 'Star Wars' and 'Stranger Things' as the only pre-installed ones. Now, Google has spun those two off as well, reducing the AR Stickers app size from 65MB to just 8.5MB.
It's been around two months since the LG G7 ThinQ was released in the US, and it's only now getting its first update on Verizon. The update includes manual AI Cam control, Google's AR Stickers, a custom music equalizer setting, and some more tweaks.
Google's AR Stickers began rolling out in December of 2017 to Pixel devices. At the time, users had 5 sticker packs to choose from when adding imaginary things on top of their real camera shots: Star Wars, Stranger Things, food, blocks, and text. Blocks were separated from the main app in February (Winter Sports were added then) and now food and text are seeing the same fate. The latest v1.2 update to the AR Stickers app shaves off about 28.5MB from the file by removing the two packs, which can now be downloaded separately.
Google's AR efforts go back a few years to the Tango developer devices. It took time for Tango to become a consumer product, and Google killed Tango after just two phone releases. Now it's all about ARCore, which you can experience in the Pixel camera. There's a new version of AR Stickers today that enables two more sticker packs. Strangely, the stickers are a separate download this time.
Motion Stills is getting a big update to v2.0 today, and with it come AR stickers. Now you'll be able to breathe new life into your already lively GIFs. This release isn't just about small animated characters, there are also some updates to make the UI a little prettier and more intuitive. As always, we've got a download link at the bottom if you want to get your hands on the update right away!
Google has been experimenting quite a bit with augmented reality recently. Project Tango still hasn't taken off, but the company's new ARCore library promises similar functionality without specialized hardware. The company is expanding on this with new 'AR Stickers' for the Google Camera.