Google shuts down Project Tango AR platform as it shifts focus to ARCore

Google to now focus on its mass market product, ARCore.

Google to end support for Tango on March 1, 2018. (AFP)

Google on Saturday announced shutting down its augmented reality platform, Tango.

Google is now shifting its focus to its mass market product, ARCore, a native support for augmented reality in all Android smartphones. The platform, built on Tango, competes with Apple's ARKit augmented reality program.

According to TechCrunch, Tango support will cease on March 1, 2018.

"Thank you to our incredible community of developers who made such progress with Tango over the last three years. We look forward to continuing the journey with you on ARCore," Google said in a tweet.

Google had launched the Tango project way back in 2014. The project relies on advanced camera hardware to build 3D meshes of spaces in a manner which was similar to the way HoloLens from Microsoft functions.

Further, it was difficult for Google to get phone manufacturers to build this fairly expensive functionality into their products, and it only succeeded in getting the Tango platform running on a few gimmicky devices. For instance, Asus earlier this year launched Project Tango-based Zenfone AR.

The company also seemed to have its hand forced this year by rival company Apple, which talked of a big game regarding its ARKit platform on iOS11.

This move left Google to abandon the high cost of entry to Android AR with the introduction of ARCore this past August.

However, Google with Pixel and Pixel 2 brought the system in the form of augmented reality stickers; opening AR features to more people instead of Tango, which is likely to have reached in its lifetime.