Augment Reality & The iPad2

[vrDrew]

Fast Company magazine has an interesting article (with obligatory Youtube clips) of some A/R Apps in development for the iPad.

The development of A/R applications was cited by many commenters as one of the reasons the iPad needed cameras. And judging from some of the clips shown, its pretty apparent that this is a field ripe for further development.

On the other hand, I get the definite feeling that there is a palpable "not there quite yet" element to A/R on a tablet. That, while its possible to have a "Wow! That's amazing!" moment, you still walk away wondering how that sort of technology would actually make your life any better/richer/more productive.

Take, for instance, the clip where the iPad is held over photographs of two women. There are apparently links to Rich Augmented Reality content hidden in the newspapers with the photos. Which sort of begs the question: Why, in 2011, do you need to distribute that sort of link via a newspaper in the first place?

 

[psonice]

Fast Company magazine has an interesting article (with obligatory Youtube clips) of some A/R Apps in development for the iPad.

The development of A/R applications was cited by many commenters as one of the reasons the iPad needed cameras. And judging from some of the clips shown, its pretty apparent that this is a field ripe for further development.

Yep, there's some interesting things you can do with this. One nice example I've seen somewhere: you're hiking up a mountain, and hold the device up to the skyline. It identifies all the surrounding peaks by name, distance and height. Genuinely useful, and extremely cool! It should be possible to overlay things like paths and roads eventually, kind of like google earth but overlaid on video instead of a 3d rendered satellite photo.

On the other hand, I get the definite feeling that there is a palpable "not there quite yet" element to A/R on a tablet. That, while its possible to have a "Wow! That's amazing!" moment, you still walk away wondering how that sort of technology would actually make your life any better/richer/more productive.

Yep. I've yet to see any that I'd actually use, or that are any more useful than just a straight map. I think it might be really good one day, and it might be good for more 'niche' uses in the near future, but for now it's mostly just a moment of coolness to see it working before you go back to the traditional stuff.

Take, for instance, the clip where the iPad is held over photographs of two women. There are apparently links to Rich Augmented Reality content hidden in the newspapers with the photos. Which sort of begs the question: Why, in 2011, do you need to distribute that sort of link via a newspaper in the first place?

Because you want to sell lots of products, and you need some hook to get people interested enough to look at your advert. So you go and use some cool new tech that people haven't seen before, because people will try it out just because it's new Remember scratch and sniff?

 

[poloponies]

The ideas and execution are in place, but the content needs to catch up. An app like Cyclopedia is a great concept (point your device at a landmark and it gives you Wiki links with details of what you're looking at), but it's severely limited by lack of GPS coding of such data on the web. I also don't think a tablet is the best implementation of AR.