Augmented Reality in Books and Apps

August 15, 2017

Is augmented reality in books and apps engaging users?

Last night our seven-year-old granddaughter dropped by, while her parents were heading out for dinner. When she arrived, I was relieved that she was carrying a tablet and that I would not be needing to teach her to play cribbage after all. After providing our network password, she was off and running in a sitting position.

We played a few games on it and then she asked if could download a new app with singing monsters. After watching the video below, and seeing that the game offered augmented reality (and it was free), I was all for it. My real incentive, however, was to find out how much the AR portion of the app engaged us.

The answer came quickly enough. Although we had tons of fun with the game, the augmented reality part of the app was a novelty for about 2 minutes, and then never accessed again. The real problem was that in one hand you need to hold the tablet, and with the other hand, manipulate the AR object.

Augmented reality is a lot like virtual reality, it will have difficulty going mainstream, if you must put a bulky device in between you and the real world. Another thing they have in common, is that the technologies are being put out there, before they are ready to show their real value.

As a futurist, I foresee augmented reality becoming a thing, long before virtual reality. It has more applications, and it can become popular, simply with the adoption of hands-free, Google Glass type technology.