Google Playground Adds Cats To AR Pets Stickers

Augmented reality stickers have become quite the attraction on social media, particularly because of the whimsical fun they bring to the table. Or to your face. or to someone else's actual table. These AR stickers can also be effective vehicles for advocating causes, marketing film franchises, or even just showing your allegiance to one of the biggest debates of all time: dogs versus cats. Google's new Playground camera mode for the Pixel 3 launched with only dogs under the Pets category. But since it's National Cat Day, Google is playing fair by adding cats to the scene as well.

To some extent, Playground is a rebranding of the AR Stickers that has already been available under the new AR Core platform. With the Pixel 3 and 3 XL phones, Google relaunched that into Playground with a small number of starting stickers. Those included some key characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Pets, which, until today, only appealed to canine lovers.

But one of the never ending debates mankind has ever had is the tug of war for your heart between canines and felines. Google isn't playing favorites so it took advantage of National Cat Day to add man's other best friend, sometimes man's owner, to the playground. You can watch these stickers be like the cats that they are, pawing at things with deadly curiosity, cleaning themselves with the utmost attention to detail, or just lazing around like the cats that they are.

But Playground stickers can also interact with each other when placed on the same scene together. So what happens if you put a dog and a cat together? Fortunately, nothing disturbing as the new furry addition will simply tilts its head in curiosity and stand up in friendly greeting. And fortunately, the canine pal will be friendly as well.

Unfortunately for cat lovers, the new Playground is, at least for now, Pixel 3 turf only. APKs floating around won't do any good unless you at least have a Pixel phone. Hopefully, Google will rollout the new AR stickers to other phones but sadly not in time for cat lovers' day.