A few wonderful things to announce with the release of V4:
For starters, the SketchUp Viewer app for iOS & Android is now FREE!(mium). Meaning, we’ve made the standard model viewing features freely available and introduced a new, premium in-app feature set for augmented reality (AR) viewing that enables you to experience your 3D models by merging them with the world around you. AR viewing works for iOS devices that support ARKit, and Android devices that support ARCore. AR viewing features are available via in-app purchase for $9.99/yr and you’re able to test the features by playing with the sample models that ship with the app. For those of you who purchased the app previously, when you upgrade to V4, you’ll automatically be granted a free, 1yr trial of the AR feature set!
Additions to the free feature set include support for Apple’s Files app & Android’s Storage Access Framework, making it much easier to open models from Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud and other popular file storage apps. And last but not least, the new Select tool and Entity Info panel put information about edge lengths, the area of faces, volume of solids, and component and group definitions at your fingertips.
We hope you’ll love V4 as much as we do and look forward to hearing feedback about the things you love and the things you hope we’ll continue to improve upon!
Good Stuff
That’s a really nice upgrade, thanks! Having entity info and a select tool now is really useful. You can select objects, double-tap to open components and select edges and faces to see their lengths/areas in Entity Info. The tape tool seems better too. I just noticed that you can do a long press to get a magnifier for more accurate positioning of points. I don’t know if that was there before or not. The camera controls seem a lot better. I don’t think place camera and look around were there before.
Bad Stuff
I can’t see how to get the AR kit without signing up for a paid subscription. I must have paid for the app previously, so how do I get the one year trial? I tried “restore subscription” which I cancelled at the Apple ID password then it continually displayed “Restoring Subscription” for several minutes until I forced it to quit. When I opened the app again, I did the restore, put in my Apple ID and it said the restore was successful. Now when I tap the AR button, nothing has changed. It still asks me to sign up to a £9.49/year subscription or to restore subscription.
Edit: My phone is too old to support ARKit but there’s still no obvious way to get that one year subscription.
For those of us who’ve purchased previous versions, will the new version update automatically if we have automatic app updating enabled on our device(s)?
So yes, you will have the latest version if you’d update. The fact that it is now free does not matter, the new AR-feature is
So, you would have to pay to experience that feature, or test it with the provided AR test-models.
It would be a nice gesture that, for those of us who have recently paid for the (now) old version, say less then 1 year ago, there could be a grace period or free subscription period? @MikeTadros
Using the “Play Store” app, I also couldn’t find the app at all - even though version 3.something is installed and working! - But not listed as “installed” or in my “library”!
After much hair pulling and cursing, I managed to bring it up in the Play Store by going through settings → Apps → Installed → There it is! Click on it! → Clicking on “Store” on the detail page.
And what do I find? “This app is not compatible with your device” and no ability to install!
Come on guys! I’ve got a Pixel C Tablet. It is perfectly capable of running the new version.
@MikeTadros Was a mistake made on the entry of the new version in the Google Play store?
Did V4 change the os requirements for this new “update”? My tablet is android 7.
My smart phone is android 5.1 and I can’t up date it because my carrier modified the device before i bought it. (crooks).
Anyway when I downloaded SU this past summer SU was compatible on both devices. Now it SUV 3 isn’t compatible with either according to the app manager on the devices.
Hey Friends! I see a couple of things to clear up in this thread.
Android compatibility - Unfortunately, because the Android ecosystem is pretty fragmented, it’s not as easy as saying, “I am running Marshmallow, why doesn’t it work?”. You may want to make sure that your device is ARCore compatible. We are working on a compatibility matrix for Android that will be shared as soon as it has been finalized. In the meantime, check to see if your device is on this list: ARCore supported devices | Google Developers
Previous paid users access to the AR feature - Of course, the AR feature is testable by everyone with the two included models (dance center and SketchUp logo). To view your own models in AR, you will need the paid feature. If you have paid for SketchUp Mobile Viewer previously, once you’ve upgraded, the app will automatically detect your prior purchase, and unlock your 1 yr trial. You just need to make sure you’re signed in to your device with the same Apple App store, or Google Play store account that is associated with your original purchase of the SketchUp Viewer app.
No it doesn’t help. I am not the least bit interested in VR and its not why I purchased the viewer back when Viewer was compatible with all my devices. You fixed it till it was broken. Fortunately the app still works on my “incompatible devices” with the same needed tweeks as it did which were ignored.
This is listed on the desktop webpage for Play and the SU Viewer app. “This app is recommended for Android phones and tablets running Lollipop (5.1) or higher with a minimum of 1024Mb of RAM.”
