I’ve been addicted to augmented reality for months now and following the developments closely. It’s definitely got the wow factor but every now and again I have to bring myself back to earth and ask – What is the point? Is it all just a gimmick?
At the moment, the technology is being developed quickly, and I can’t help but feel people are getting carried away with what they can do rather than how can this be useful. There are a few shining examples out there where augmented reality has been used because it’s useful not just for the sake of augmented reality.
USPS developed a postage pricing system, this was one of the first AR apps I saw that had more to it than just holding a marker up and watching animation.
When you’re not sure how much your packet should cost to post. You can use this virtual box simulator to check if it fits in the boxes they ship. It still remains top of my list of AR applications due to how useful this is.
Zugara’s Online Shopping Augmented Dressing Room hit my shopaholic gene.
According to this video 3.57% of visitors to online retail sites make a purchase, could virtually trying clothing on help to boost this percentage? Will the clothes really look like they do on screen? We’ll have to wait for a retailer to adopt this and see just how successful it really is. Not knowing how something will look definitely effects my online purchasing decisions. The really nice part of this is that you can control the application and buy the items through hand gestures.
In a similar try before you buy vein, Ray Ban created the virtual mirror but as soon as you ask a user to download a desktop application, as you’ll see in these stats you’re drastically reducing the number of people willing to interact with your app to somewhere between 35 and 60%.
Of course sometimes the point needs to be just to have fun and be entertained but I think it’s still important here that it’s in a way that we couldn’t before AR.
Animated Lego, AR drumkits, AR magic and Rock Paper Scissor T-Shirts are brilliant examples of this.
Mobile AR applications are also plentiful, while ‘thankfully’ we’re not quite at the stages of Nude It there is a lot of progress been made for the iPhone and other mobile platforms, with apps such as Nearest Tube and Junaio allowing you to interact and discover information about your environment. To browsers like Layar and Wikitude, allowing you to augment your reality with a variety of different types of information that you need. But none of these are an integrated part of our every day life and of course pose hazards; I don’t want to step in dog poo just because I’m staring at my phone walking towards the nearest bar.
Finally of course there are some great looking AR games out there, and using your trainers as a game controller, not the ones you ruined earlier. Is a really nice idea.
Lots of big brands have used Augmented Reality recently to market products, films or their brand. We’ve seen examples from Transformers, Oasis (Rubberduckzilla), Adidas. But how successful were they? How many users have interacted with their content? And bought the product, seen the movie, talked about the brand as a result? This all comes down to does your audience understand AR? Are the only people excited about this and using it AR geeks like us? How many people have a webcam? Or a machine powerful enough to run intensive flash? These are all questions that I’m waiting eagerly to hear the answer to, all of which will answer my opening question, is it all just a gimmick?
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