App Clips and WebXR

Mattercraft supports two enhanced delivery paths for world-tracked AR experiences: App Clips (iOS) and WebXR (Android). These options improve world-tracking quality and stability compared to browser-only WebAR.

Use these technologies whenever your project involves world tracking, portals, product placement, VPS, extended tracking, or interactive AR content that benefits from high-precision device tracking.

App Clips (iOS)

What Are App Clips?

App Clips allow Mattercraft projects to run using the device’s native AR capabilities (ARKit on iOS) without requiring users to install a full app. Experiences launch through lightweight App Clip bundles triggered by QR codes or links.

App Clip functionality includes:

• Access to native world tracking (ARKit)
• Improved user experience vs. browser
• Fullscreen display
• Wake lock and rotation lock
• Optimised permissions flow
• More predictable playback for audio and video
• Fully compatible with all Mattercraft features and templates

How to use App Clips?

1. Create a new project using any World Tracking template.
2. In Preview, enable App Clips on the preview QR code.
3. When publishing, ensure your trigger is configured for App Clips. Mattercraft will prompt you to update the trigger if required.

If you’re updating a project pre-App Clip release, then you’ll need to update to @zcomponent/zappar-three v3.5.0 or later (Dependencies Browser → left panel) and update the mattercraft.json file to include: ,"preferAppClip": true. This will then show the App Clip checkbox in the preview modal.

App Clip Trigger Management (Published Projects)

App Clip settings can be enabled/disabled per trigger from the Project Overview page. Custom App Clip branding and integration via your own apps are available separately through Zappar, get in touch to learn more.

WebXR (Android)

What is WebXR?

WebXR provides in-browser world tracking on Android using ARCore, no Instant Apps or app installation required. Experiences run directly in Chrome in immersive mode.

WebXR functionality includes:

• ARCore world tracking within the browser
• No Instant App handoff
• Predictable performance and consistent launch flow
• Fullscreen immersive mode
• In-browser saving and sharing
• Video recording

How to use WebXR?

For all new world-tracking templates on Android, WebXR is enabled automatically.

If you’re updating a project pre-WebXR release, update to the latest @zcomponent/zappar-three version and add the following WebXR initialisation snippet at the top of index.ts file: import { setPreferWebXRCamera } from "@zappar/zappar";setPreferWebXRCamera(true);

WebXR Trigger Management (Published Projects)

Unlike App Clips, WebXR is a project level setting. As long as the projects has the above setup, then the experience will automatically launch into WebXR on supported devices. There is no need to update triggers from the project overview page.