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Google just killed Playground AR stickers once and for all
They've been delisted from the Play Store
Playground AR stickers built into the Google Camera app on Pixel phones were first introduced in 2017. With them, you could put fun little characters, figures, and text and overlay them over the real world with your phone's camera. It was a fun feature, but one that has been defunct for a long time, as it was killed off when the Pixel 4a launched in 2020. You can't currently use those stickers on modern Pixel 6 and Pixel 7 phones, for example. Now, Google is putting the final nail in the Playground AR stickers coffin as they've been delisted from the Play Store.
26 new devices from Oppo, Xiaomi, and Samsung now officially support ARCore
Guess you can say Google likes AUGMENTING this list
Mixed reality experiences continue to play their roles in helping us understand concepts, tell stories, market products, or in just letting us hang out with a virtual Pomeranian for a hot second. For Android phones, that means having Google certify that your phone supports its ARCore APIs. We've got our first batch of new supported devices for 2021 right here.
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's AR emoji are still fun to play with while we're all stuck inside
How to augment our extremely boring reality
Depending on where you live, you could be just days or entire months into quarantine as we try to bore the novel coronavirus out of existence. Too bad the quarantine's doing the same to us, huh? Well, if you find yourself creating Bitmoji scenes, building wooden block towers to pass the ages, or even looking at tigers and other animals in 3D space, you might want to fit in some playtime with some AR emoji or "Playmoji" as Google calls them.
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.
The highly anticipated grand finale of Marvel's Avengers series is just around the corner with its US release on April 26, and the hype train is fully deployed. Google has jumped right on it and published new Playmoji characters to hop around in your Pixel camera's viewfinder: War Machine, Thor, Black Widow, Rocket, and Captain Marvel.
Google isn't showing any signs of slowing down with its AR emoji venture, now called Playground or Playmoji. Just last month, the new Childish Gambino set dropped and a couple of days ago Cody discovered signs of the app working on AR shopping, animals, answers, and something related to International Women's Day. Now a new set has surfaced, this time for Japanese phrases.
Google Playground's stickers and Playmojis are pretty fun, and the timely Childish Gambino drop likely brought more attention to the Pixel's AR features. It makes sense, then, that Valentine's Day arrives with another new pack, predictably all pink and heart-shaped.
Some of you may remember when Google showed off an AR Childish Gambino for the newly rebranded Playground app during Made by Google 2018. If you do, congrats! For some reason, Google seems to have edited out that section of the announcement (and perhaps others). Whatever the motivation behind its apparently revisionist take on history, the feature is actually here now. You can download the Childish Gambino Playground plugin today.
When the Pixel 3 debuted two months back, Google made sure its new flagship lineup was adorned with all the latest bells and whistles, introducing us to a whole bunch of new features in the process. From the get-go, we were curious to learn which of these might also make their way to older Pixel phones, and when. Over the past few weeks more and more have been expanding to new devices, and the latest to spread the love is Playground and its Playmoji packs, now formally available for the Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel 2, and Pixel 2 XL.
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.
Google's Pixel 3 and 3 XL didn't pack a whole lot of hardware surprises, considering the unceasing deluge of leaks over recent months, but the software was another story. There were plenty of new camera features shown off at the Made by Google 2018 event, with oodles of machine learning magic to go around. Unfortunately for owners of older Pixel phones, not all of these new features will be coming to older handsets. For your convenience, we put together a list of all the major software changes that will (and won't) be coming to previous models.
[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.
The biggest advantage of Pixel ownership, outside Google's highly optimized software experience, is the camera. Pixels have been consistently near or at the top of the pack when it comes to photo quality, and in no small part that's because of that Google software. A camera is more than just hardware, image processing can be as (or more) important than simply having a good sensor, and Google has included plenty of camera improvements this year. Let's take a look.
You know how everyone is excited for Google's Android event on Monday (October 29)? Sorry to rain on your parade (heh), but they just cancelled it thanks to Hurricane Sandy.