Published April 10th, 2025
Hello Mattercraft community!
We're thrilled to announce the latest addition to Mattercraft: App Clips! This powerful new feature takes your WebAR experiences to the next level by leveraging Zappar's App Clip (iOS) and Instant App (Android) technology, delivering premium AR world tracking capabilities without requiring users to download a dedicated app.
App Clips transform your WebAR experiences by providing:
- High quality world tracking, leveraging the full hardware and built-in AR technologies of the device (such as ARKit and ARCore)
- Improved user experience (versus the web browser) including full screen, wake lock and rotation lock
- Optimised permissions dialog user flows
- Simpler and more consistent ability to play media, including audio and video
Scan the QR code below to try an experience built with Mattercraft and App Clip enabled:
With App Clips, it's now possible to build and create WebAR experiences for a vast number of use cases. Check out these demos of content built in Mattercraft and launched with App Clips:
Create stunning digital environments you can place and walk around. With App Clips making use of ARKit and ARCore, there's no need for the initial anchor position to always be in the camera view, allowing for larger, portal type experiences.
Place products in your real world environment, at real world scale to showcase digital products in your users space.
Use the Immersal integration within Mattercraft to overlay and track digital content to real world scans.
Go further by using image and extended tracking. When images are out of view, you can use world tracking as a fallback so the digital content stays in position.
With App Clips, you have access to the full suite of features and functionality within Mattercraft. This makes it possible to build AR mini-games, such as a physics-based Jenga game (as seen below).
The amazing thing about App Clips is that they work seamlessly with both existing and new projects. If you already have a world tracked project created, you can follow the "existing projects" steps to supercharge the world tracking stability.
Open Mattercraft and select any world tracking template
When previewing, enable App Clips on your preview QR code
When publishing, you'll be prompted to update your triggers (if they are not already App Clip enabled), so make sure the App Clips option is checked!
Ensure you're using version 3.5.0 or later of the @zcomponent/zappar-three package (you can find this in the dependencies browser, in the left hand menu of Mattercraft)
Set up your triggers to launch with App Clips through your project settings (see next section for information on how to set up triggers for App Clips).
You can also enable/disable App Clip support on your triggers from the main project overview page on your workspace, as seen below:
Additional branding options, plus integrating and deploying App Clips through your own apps are available. These features are costed separately, so please get in touch with us to learn more if you're interested in customising your solution.
Whether you're creating immersive portals, product visualisations, or interactive games, App Clips open up new possibilities for your WebAR projects. Start building today and keep an eye on our "What's New" section for more exciting updates coming soon!
Thank you for being part of the Mattercraft journey! Your feedback continues to inspire us, and we can't wait to see the incredible immersive experiences you bring to life with App Clips!