I think these are bad examples for AR (as was the one in the keynote), because there is no interaction between the VR world and the real world.
The VR content doesn't benefit from being placed on the table, nor does the real world. You might just as well view the content in plain VR and lose nothing.
Those were tech demo mockups people made in very little time. The only thing these were really meant to demonstrate is how good apple's tracking is and how easy it is to create something that works on your phone and iPad.
As for "might as well view in VR", nah. People don't carry Vive or Rift VR sets in their pocket every day, and can't use them out on a walk, out on a construction site, or at a meeting room table. Apple hasn't sold 1.2 billion VR headsets in the past 10 years. Sure there are wireless VR headset setups out there, but who wants to strap a backpack and battery to their body and walk around like a Boston Dynamics experiment? Well, I do. But I'm weird like that.
Here's a virtual walkthrough of a house. Just plopped into a field, and mapped to one-to-one movement with the person. The use for home builders is obvious. Could it be done in VR? Yeah. But who wouldn't like seeing their house at the actual site on a sunny day?
Here's mincraft in AR. Can it be done in 2d on a console, pc, or phone already with no ar? yeah. But this is just plain neat:
Here's one with someone using AR to create fake interaction with the real world by carving a hole in a garage door to see another world. It's super low poly and kinda goofy, but he interacted with the real world there.
Here's an airplane sitting in AR on some concrete. Seems boring, right? Not if you think of it in the right context. Imagine going to an airshow, and loading up other historical aircraft to show them side by side with existing aircraft. It would be great for learning and comparison. I know some people in an aviation company that got all excited by this simple demo! They got all sorts of ideas from this.
And not just for comparison, they also want interactive apps to demonstrate runway incursions that allow you to view from any angle.
Doable in VR? Yeah. But pilots don't almost all own VR headsets already. They own iPads, because they use them for flight plans and other aviation tasks. The iPad is a common cockpit tool now.
Can any of this be done in VR? Sure. And it can look
much better. But AR will surpass VR in market penetration in no time with the right backing. In this case, the biggest mobile manufacturer in the world and tech that works on devices people already own.
I love AR and VR. I look at AR as a way to get VR off the ground even more, and get the development tech to mature faster.
Besides, it isn't like VR headsets are selling well.
http://fortune.com/2017/02/19/virtual-reality-vr-sales/