The buzz surrounding augmented reality has grown deafening, and for good reason. Conceptually, at least, augmented reality erases the line between the real and virtual worlds: examples include everything from those yellow, simulated first-down lines you see during NFL broadcasts to high-tech, head-up displays integrated into the windshields of military fighter planes. And AR, as it is quickly becoming known, is making its way into the hands of consumers via smartphones and portable videogame consoles. But significant technological and logistical strides must be made if augmented reality is to fulfill its promise and truly become a part of the everyday lives of consumers.
Mobile game developers have tinkered with AR in recent years: I remember playing games a few years ago that integrated simulated images with the phone’s camera, allowing me to swat virtual flies or shoot aliens on the screen by physically moving the phone to target them. AR has recently has begun making its way to smartphones, which are currently the best medium for such applications for several key reasons:
- Smartphones have effectively moved beyond enterprise users into the hands of mainstream consumers around the world, with 41 million units shipped in the most recent quarter, according to Gartner.
- The processing power of today’s smartphones is unprecedented, and most sophisticated modern phones include AR-friendly features such as large, colorful screens; cameras and camcorders; and GPS-enabled location awareness.
- Unlike most other forms of consumer electronics, smartphones are A) connected to the Internet and B) support two-way communication.
Apple’s App Store last month began offering an AR app from Presselite that enables Parisian subway passengers to locate the nearest stations, as well as a product that leverages the iPhone’s GPS and compass to deliver Yelp content about nearby businesses. Meanwhile, the Dutch startup SPRXmobile has garnered praise for Layar, an AR browser running on the Android OS that delivers ATM locations, restaurant information and available jobs on the phone’s screen as users point the camera at their surroundings. (For an impressive demonstration of Layar, click here.) And TwittARound, an app for the iPhone 3G S, uses the phone’s camera, compass and GPS to show where nearby tweets are coming from.
Agreed. The more over hyped, the more we will start seeing moblie apps that take advantage of AR but provide little value. My hope is that as with all great technology, we see great advances and value not saturation.
Great work!
Wow. Really insightful commentary from all three of you. Thanks.
There’s no question that there are some serious limitations with AR, especially in mobile. That’s why I think it’s vitally important that developers not overreach, and that the industry doesn’t oversell. I think the quickest path to success (and prosperity) with AR is to take small steps, to show consumers what it is and what it can do without overwhelming them (or under-performing for them). Billing AR as a killer (or killer feature, or whatever) will only ensure that it disappoints in the hands of users.
The tripping point (not to be confused with tipping point) of most location-based apps is the presumption of a binary outcome—it either supports every conceivable location or none at all.
In marketing, like fishing, you look for hotspots, places where people congregate and pre-disposed to transact. Sunday NFL football at the stadium, anybody? 70,000+ people who have a mutual, predictable, quantifiable and *monetizable* demand to park, know where their seat is, where to pee, where to get beer, where to find souvenirs,find out who else is there, respond to special offers.
This Halloween weekend in New Orleans is Voodoo, a hard-core funky music festival. An AR app for Android phones is being fielded there which will help people get the most out of the festival by wayfinding through a 3 day thicket of bands, food, and other “diversions”, being New Orleans and all. A local marketing shop pulled Layar’s API and built a brick to go in the wall.
^^^I think that framing AR as a block-by-block coast-to-coast solution naturally means it’s not ready for prime time. But block and tackle work at festivals, museums, and other wetware hotspots can be a profitable business hear and now.^^^
I think AR faces 2 weaknesses:
1) First, localition determination using the GPS signal is not precise. When I use my HTC phone running on Android, I get my position with an accuracy between 10 to 3 meters (I think it gets better when GPS is coupled with WiFi signals but I’m not sure how it works on Android). This means that you can’t aim at small targets inside an AR app. For instance, you can’t aim at a specific object in a storefront nor you can’t aim at someone who is close to you. The Europa Union plans to bring a 1 meter precision with the Galileo project but we’ll have to wait for a couple of years before the service is available…
2) GPS location doesn’t work indoor. You can’t use AR apps in a mall or in the subway… Maybe, we WiFi signals alone can be used but even if free WiFi hotspots are available, we don’t have maps for these kinds of places.
So, ^^^my guess is that the first AR apps on the market will sell because AR is ‘sexy’ (especially, I’m waiting for a kind of shoot’em up game). People will agree to give it a try for a few bucks. However, I think that there are technological shortcomings which make AR not good enough for killer apps right now.^^^
I think we are getting close to real useful solutions using AR. The smartphone uses are particularly interesting as it makes sense to provide extra information based on what’s around you.
The problem I see with a lot of these methods currently is in the amount of visual information can be overwhelming. Phones have small screens, and once AR overlays begin covering everything on the screen the usefulness drops radically.
^^^The trick is going to be making the AR program intelligently display only the information germane to the user’s needs at the time.^^^