Smartphone AR is over. Long live wearable AR!
In case you missed it, shooting toy rockets and catching pixel butterflies can get you all in with Virtual Reality.
The simple “touch, hold and release” interactions in Virtual Reality can be super inspiring.
So what about Augmented Reality, then?
The current mass-market potential of AR comes from the fact that most smartphones support either ARKit, Apple’s AR platform, or ARCore, the Android equivalent.
Yet, you might find smartphone AR frustrating. Why is that?
It is asking you to operate in an in-between state, between the two-dimensional glass surface of a smartphone and the physical and three-dimensional space you see through the camera viewfinder. AR on smartphones comes very short of accessible interaction possibilities that are there, in the idea of augmenting reality.
Mobile AR has not developed into a consumer category
Quantitative marketing and freemium business model expert (and an ex-colleague of mine) Eric Seufert recently wrote about how the expectations regarding AR from 2-3 years ago have played out. He writes about mobile AR apps as a consumer category, i.e.
“a wholly unique format to which mass-market consumer products conform — instigated by some new technological innovation, hardware form factor, or business model — which spawns new consumer behaviours and which by definition features sub-categories.”
Eric’s take, in summary, is that the window for AR to become a consumer category has closed. I do want to underline that he is writing in the context of the smartphone market, which for AR as technology is seriously handicapped.
Nevertheless, it’s hard to argue against his conclusion:
“Without any real traction outside of Pokemon Go, and with the number of resources that have been applied by not only developers but of the mobile platform owners, which have aggressively invested into AR’s adoption, the path to category creation is unclear; that moment may have passed.”
Meanwhile, let’s make smartphone AR suck less
Yet, if you have practised design in many other domains, it is easier to see the forest for the trees, and how mobile AR as we know it is an interim phase. AR can only live up to its potential as wearable technology, such as glasses.
Recent leaks about Apple Glass and their prescription-nullifying technology speak to this wearable potential, which is about to become reality. Eyeglasses are probably the oldest wearable technology. Thus far, they have augmented our optics to reality, and soon they will be augmenting reality itself.
Image: Techweartrend
Meanwhile, we shouldn’t stop figuring out how to make the most of the fact that 3 billion people out there use a smartphone.
There are two options to approach this problem: Ditch mobile AR because ”it sucks”, or try to work with the constraints and make the most out of them.
Start future-proofing your career for the wearable future
A few thought-starters that bring together benefits for both today and the future:
Brainstorm AR concepts with 5-15 seconds’ use sessions in mind: treat smartphone AR as if taking a photo or shooting a short video. Push yourself into thinking how AR can add value in such tight constraints!
Channel your creativity to making face filters: this is the popular AR of now. Download Lens Studio from Snap, start fiddling with one of the templates and you’re off!
Pick up Torch to quickly explore the feasibility of concepts! Sign up at SketchFab and Google Poly to bring in tons of assets into your AR scenes with this drag & drop prototyping tool!
Get inspired by the work by companies such as Arcade, who bridge physical and digital spaces to make them playable
In the process, you will both make something tangible, which
always accumulates into your immersive design experience, and
you have started future-proofing your design craft for the wearable AR future.
Finally, listen for more of my thoughts on this and immersive in general.
Stay safe,
Aki