Augmented Reality: the future is now

If there’s a kind of apps which evolution has amazed us in the last times, that’s it Augmented Reality (AR) apps. From mere emerging software projects few months ago, they’ve become a reality today. The development of high-end smartphones has been the pre-condition for making it happens. So here we are. Although the uses of AR apps are growing day by day (games, advertising,…), the original application has been searching nearby places and resources. Actually, that’s the issue in which AR apps have been further evolved. And that’s the kind we’re reviewing in this post. Let’s zoom in it!

Layar

We’re starting from the most complete app in this regard: Layar. The amount of layers (500+), its 35 different categories, its good-looking layout and its ease of use raise it to the top. You can search nearby accommodation, museums, city tours, dating, employment, Health, Tweets around, sports and leisure… among many other resources. Seeking out with Layars is as easy as applying as many layers as you want and hold your phone up. Aim with your camera around and walk to the places. There’s a list an a map view, the distance to the place, comments and rating from other users and integration with sharing resources. Hundreds of databases made layers up and the amount of info available it’s huge, no matter which country you are.

.

Wikitude Let’s say that Wikitude is the little brother of Layar. However, it’s growing up fast despite of it has released later. Wikitude is a multiplatform app that uses geolocation to find places and resources in AR. Thus, it’s works similar to Layar, but it provides some innovative resources. For instance, it calls each layer “World”. There are hundreds of them, although not as many as in Layar. From our point of view,Wikitude’s layout is better: it provides a dashboard for a fast access to your favorites resources. It has full integration with social media resources: Flickr, Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and above all, with Wikipedia entries. We liked the bar to choose the searching distance, and the map/list view, as well as the ease of sharing places. However, accuracy could be improved and more layers are always welcomed. Wikitude was featured in one of our videoreviews.

Lookator Finally, an specific-feature AR app. Layar and Wikitude aim to cover all searching resources by applying layouts. However there are some specific apps which make a category up by themselves. That’s Lookator’s case: an app for searching WiFi hotspots nearby by using AR technology. This is specially useful in this moment due to smartphones are spreading and there are coming up thousands of bars, restaurants, libraries and other local places with free WiFi access. A light app for a specific purpose set in a user-friendly UI. Interesting use of AR. .

.

.