To Ride The AR Hype or Avoid It?
I write this post realizing that if I were to title it, “The Top 20 Augmented Reality Apps That Will Totally Change Every Aspect Of Your Life,” that it would get way more hits, and would probably be tweeted about nonstop for the next three days. Thing is, in reality, not one truly life changing app exists yet, outside of a special effects lab. It seems, though, that no one in the blogosphere really cares. Augmented Reality is the sensationalist tech headline of 2009.
AR developers can’t change the hype cycle, but they can position themselves to withstand the upcoming trough of disillusionment. I think it will come with the iPhone 3.1 launch, when users find that the mobile AR tech isn’t quite at the level it’s advertised to be. So, how does a developer set themselves apart from the sea of wannabe AR upstarts? Here are a few suggestions:
Develop either your own AR tech or unique implementation of existing tech
If I wanted to, I could find someone to create a 3D model and put on a marker for less than $500. No AR developer is going to survive, in the long run, if they provide a product that can be reproduced by an offshore company, for a fraction of the price. This will soon include GPS/Compass based AR, as an open source toolkit is already available.
At Zugara, we’re busy creating web based, core frameworks, as well as new implementations of current frameworks, with a focus on practical applications. Companies with this mindset will win out in the long run, because those focusing most of their efforts on getting short term, viral publicity won’t have a viable product when the novelty of Augmented Reality wears off in a few months.
Don’t post videos promising more than you can currently give a live demo of
I put Layar 2.0 on the company G1 development phone yesterday. It’s a good app for what it does, but like all GPS/Compass based mobile apps, in my opinion, it isn’t worth the “OMFG this is AMAZING” blog posts that it’s getting. I’m confident that when the mass populace gets a hold of these types of apps, there might be a novelty to them in the beginning, but no one in their right mind will use them over a Google Maps implementation.
I, like many people, have been watching the hype following Layar for many months, where it was presented as overlaying information over the real world. In reality it overlays things in such an inaccurate manner that the camera feed is a completely unnecessary component of the program. This is nothing against the program itself, since the hardware technology doesn’t really permit any more functionality than is offered. I will, however, point a finger at how Layar was lacking in pre-release, live use video demos, since in the long run, the fostering of over expectation of a product’s abilities hurts the brand behind it. I believe that this is what will happen to most of the companies focusing on iPhone 3.1 AR.
In order to get around this problem, the smart AR developer clearly marks a video that they can’t reproduce in a live demo as being a concept or a work in progress. An even smarter developer never releases any promotional videos without a matching live run video. Following this rule will present the company as being more legitimate than those just looking to get some press.
Note: Ahead of possible comments, I’ll acknowledge that Zugara’s Webcam Social Shopper only has a promo video available to the public. This is because it was written as an API for clothing retailers to utilize with their product database. A fully working demo, with a sample database, is regularly demoed to clients.
Think outside of the box
Rather than repeat myself, for my reasoning behind moving away from visual examples, check out my earlier post on eye candy AR.
Augmented Reality is a visually amazing thing the first time you see it, and I think that this forces many people’s creativity towards visual implementations (including map overlays, since they don’t really provide any more functionality than an overhead implementation). This doesn’t mean, on order to be ahead of the curve, that it’s necessary to create totally new forms of AR from the ground up. In fact, I’m confident that the really exciting implementations, over the next few months, will be a mixing of object/marker recognition based AR with social networking tech.
I’m sure someone will read that and say, “TAT already did that with Augmented ID,” except that I haven’t seen a live demo video of it, so in my book, it’s a concept project only and holds as much weight as Minority Report. Zugara’s game, CannonBallz, on the other hand, even though it’s simpler version of AR is motion tracking and 2D overlays, uses Facebook Connect to share game photos. It gives users an interactive glimpse into what will be available in the near future for AR.
Overall, what I’m trying to get across is simply to be responsible when conceptualizing, developing and promoting your AR products, because pretty soon the public is going to be demanding substance over swagger, and right now there’s a whole lot of swagger going around.
The promotion video for Layar was (UPDATE: changed "a post production job" to "a completely controlled environment demo that can not be reproduced by the end user") that heightened many peoples' expectations. To what extent is debatable.
TAT’s Augmented ID is another example of a product that many people think is already at the proof of concept stage, even though there is no evidence that it is anything more than a post production video.
Tags: augmented reality, developers, iPhone 3.1 AR, layar, open source toolkit, tips
Hi,
I just read that you think our video was a post production job. The only thing we did in the video is quicken the “call broker action”. This was a FULL working version. Using GPS, compass, mobile network, real database with Funda.
So please specify what you think we changed? Further we had lots of videos demoing our Product. Have a look here for more demo videos: http://layar.com/7-layar-20-videos/
August 21st, 2009 at 5:55 amGood article I agree.
@Raimo the Mazda video clearly is a dumb implementation. I know that you need the brand and some money but it is a weird video. And of no use.
A top view map is used best to find your route, Mazda dealer TNT post boxes etc. 3D view hasn’t got any use in that. Specialy in amsterdam, the post box on the other side of the channel doesn’t can be the closed but not the quickest to get to, you can only find out that info in map view.
August 21st, 2009 at 6:22 am@Raimo : I think you’re taking this article in a little bit too heartly. I understand Layar is your product, but basically I just can but agree with this article. Too many mock-ups, too many post-production to catch funding here and there – after all, this is the world we are living in today – but many of such application very quickly fall short of interest after the first woaw effects.
Considering Layar… I must say it’s a nice application, but suffering from the lack of precision from both the GPS and compass units. I also do personally consider that AR cannot just be the end purpose, it’s just another view offered to the enduser. As such, I do prefer by a factor thousands Wikitude’s API approach, which allows any developer to quickly put up an “AR” view, instead of Layar which is a closed model.
Such application are also highly dependent on the quality of the info feeds. Google Local search is, in fact, very much “so so”. A lot of their data is not accurate anymore, lot’s are missing or out of date. As such, the next “big thing” is more about any potential info provider to correctly geocode their information.
I don’t really like holding the device in front of me to get the so-called “augmented view”. It’s not estetic, it’s mainly catching all possible sunshine on the screen, it’s blocking your “natural” view. I would really like to use kind of see-thru glasses such as the coming Vuzix’s Wrap 920, coupled to an iPhone or Android device to fetch the info.
Finally, when I see and hear all the fuzz about AR on mobile phones, this makes me remember the hypes about the “coming” virtual reality we had in the 90′s, especially in the trails of the movie “The Lawnmower Man”. And we are now in 2009, with computers 20x more powerfull than what we had back at that time, and where are all the dreams and promises of VR ????
So indeed, let’s cool down… Let’s continue to experiment with softs like Layar, Wikitude and the likes, but let’s remember who we are, what we need, and what’s just… noise.
August 21st, 2009 at 7:43 am@Raimo: We’ve corrected the caption on the photo. That being said, the environment that the video was made in was so controlled, that I couldn’t tell that it wasn’t post production. Also, in the post I stated that Layar is the best software job that someone could do with the current hardware limitations. I never stated that the product wasn’t fully functional.
August 21st, 2009 at 9:24 amMy main issue was with the lack of live use demo videos released PRE-LAUNCH, which I think fostered unrealistic hype for the product. BTW, the videos that you linked to were all posted this month.
I think everyone understands the desire to get investment for an emerging technology product. What I was trying to get across in the article is that not squashing the unrealistic expectations of a product hurts investment in emerging technology companies, in the long run.
[...] To Ride The AR Hype or Avoid It? Zugara’s Jack Benoff warns against the trough of disillusionment that usually comes after the peak of inflated expectation in the hype cycle model, and share some advice on how AR developers should handle it. Along the way he determines that most people will be disappointed with Layar once they’ll try it, so be sure to read Raimo van der Klein (Layar’s CEO) response in the comments. More on this topic from Zugara – Calm Down, Augmented Reality For Your Mobile Phone Won’t Be As Useful As Promised. If I wanted to, I could find someone to create a 3D model and put on a marker for less than $500. No AR developer is going to survive, in the long run, if they provide a product that can be reproduced by an offshore company, for a fraction of the price. This will soon include GPS/Compass based AR, as an open source toolkit is already available. … [companies] focusing most of their efforts on getting short term, viral publicity won’t have a viable product when the novelty of Augmented Reality wears off in a few months. [...]
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August 22nd, 2009 at 3:34 pmWow! You know heaps!!!
January 24th, 2010 at 12:02 pmSuch application are also highly dependent on the quality of the info feeds. Google Local search is, in fact, very much “so so”. A lot of their data is not accurate anymore, lot’s are missing or out of date. As such, the next “big thing” is more about any potential info provider to correctly geocode their information.
I don’t really like holding the device in front of me to get the so-called “augmented view”. It’s not estetic, it’s mainly catching all possible sunshine on the screen, it’s blocking your “natural” view. I would really like to use kind of see-thru glasses such as the coming Vuzix’s Wrap 920, coupled to an iPhone or Android device to fetch the info.
Finally, when I see and hear all the fuzz about AR on mobile phones, this makes me remember the hypes about the “coming” virtual reality we had in the 90’s, especially in the trails of the movie “The Lawnmower Man”. And we are now in 2009, with computers 20x more powerfull than what we had back at that time, and where are all the dreams and promises of VR ????
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June 5th, 2011 at 6:05 am