Aside from Niantic’s hits and a bunch of furniture shopping apps, virtual and augmented reality are still finding their niche in the mobile app market.
The company Wayfair, known primarily for furniture and home decor, also contributed to the app market, too. The app offers enables augmented reality shopping where, for a moment, products appear in your home. The app also makes use of Apple’s AR platform ARKit as the feature “View in Room 3D”.
But this is not the first app to employ augmented reality in such a useful if mundane way. The AR app market seems to be overflowing with interior decorating and eCommerce, but not much else.
Will the AR/VR mobile app market ever offer real utility outside of furniture shopping and catching Pokémon?
Are augmented reality apps only good for in-app shopping?CLICK TO TWEET
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Wayfair via Mashable
Usefulness of AR in Imagining a 3D Space
Wayfair definitely wasn’t the first furniture outlet to jump on the AR app market train. Houzz, a major competitor, has one available via Apple, as well. Coincidentally, Wayfair and IKEA launched their Android AR apps around the same time (March 20th).
Using IKEA Place, customers can fill various rooms for their home using virtual furniture on a tablet or phone. You can even purchase that item via the app after seeing how it would look using AR.
As suggested in Forbes, this kind of technology can apply to clothes shopping, too. The author suggested that this could further spell the end for brick and mortar retail.
This would need to be integrated with something akin to Google Glass.
Trying to hold your phone in such a way that you can see yourself in AR applied clothes might seem like a challenge, but Obsess has a solution for that. With the system the startup proposes, you can put the clothes you wish to buy on a real model using AR.
Watch the demo below.
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An Argument For AR Apps: Real-Time Aid and Teaching Tools
We have written before about AR and VR as teaching tools regarding the pros and cons.
Obviously, one of the biggest obstacles to overcome (especially for VR) is equipment. The barrier to entry that is the sheer cost of equipment is enough to delay integration. Accessibility is a huge factor when integrating a new technology.
But that doesn’t negate the power of seeing gifs come to like via GIPHY World. Little kiddos can even use apps like My Very Hungry Caterpillar AR.
American Airlines developed “Augmented Reality Wayfinding” using the ARKit. You can use it to see interactive, real-time maps on your phone in the airport. It can lead you to food, shopping, and your appropriate gate.
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Final Verdict: AR Apps Are Still Mostly Gimmicks
Unfortunately, technology hasn’t quite caught up with ideas yet when it comes to AR and VR.
It is super neat to see Warhammer 40K characters in real life, but it has a shelf life. So do other AR apps on the app market like the Wayfair and IKEA apps.
The American Airlines app might be useful for some users. But it falls in the same category as AR MeasureKit for me. The idea is cool, but technology is not at a place to effectively support it yet.
Source: Edgy Labs