Augmented reality (AR) continues to open doors to new levels of immersivity in 2023. Not only can it offer users breathtaking solutions to a wide variety of scenarios, but it has all but infiltrated just about every industry on the planet.
Taking the likes of virtual reality one step further, AR has opened up immersive experiences to a much wider audience. Without the need for a VR headset, augmented reality can be enjoyed on smartphone screens and tablets with ease.
In fact, a whopping 3.5 billion people will use smartphone-based AR in 2022, and that number is only growing.
As the AR-powered app scene develops, it’s time to start using it to your advantage. Here are some of the best AR-infused platforms on the market just waiting to be downloaded.
Google Lens
Blending the powers of augmented reality and artificial intelligence, Google Lens is one of the most popular AR apps on the market right now.
Transforming on-the-go research like never before, Google Lens has now become a must-have tool in your app library. Designed to pull up information in seconds, users can simply scan an object or landmark, and Google will tell you all about it.
Want to know more about a dog breed? Or are you wondering what plant is growing in your garden? Google Lens will take care of it, bringing a new element to the traditional ‘Google Search’.
With over 500 million users already, Google Lens is not to be missed.
IKEA Place
For furniture fanatics, IKEA has you covered. With the ability to imagine your dream sofa already in your living room, the IKEA Place app is transforming the online shopping experience.
Available on both iOS and Android, the IKEA Place app allows users to scroll through an online version of their store and pick and choose items to place around their own house. Better still, many products can be customised on the app to help shoppers decide on the perfect size and colour of their new piece of furniture.
Taking AR one step further, IKEA’s development partner SPACE10 has revealed that the app has been designed for both App users and AR glasses wearers.
“While we have developed what is right now a mobile application, we’ve also been interested in what devices like glasses might be able to do for this technology,” he says. “So we’ve made very deliberate decisions to paint the vision of Studio as one that can exist on both the smartphone or in a glasses-like setting. We’ve also used a new renderer reality kit from Apple that lets us achieve a level of detail on these models that hasn’t been seen before in IKEA’s AR portfolio.”
ScopeAR
Another great addition to your app library is Scope AR. If you’re looking for an industry-focused app that combines immersivity with onboarding, Scope has you covered.
Scope AR uses a smartphone or tablet camera to scan a user's surroundings before projecting real-time instructions and annotations onto the screen. For new recruits, manual labourers and warehouse pickers, having an AR-powered aid to help enhance manual tasks is a great way to learn the job on the go.
What’s more, the platform has just launched its newest feature called Worklink Quizzing. Opening doors for company training schemes, Scope AR can now test its user’s subject knowledge in a hands-on setting and automatically measure employee competency.
“WorkLink Quizzing ushers in the era of immersive content for learning and development practitioners by delivering a set of tools that allow practically anyone to create a quiz or knowledge check-in augmented reality, with no coding knowledge required,” says Scope AR’s CEO, Scott Montgomerie. “With the addition of these grading and assessment tools across our WorkLink platform, organizations are able to rapidly on-board, train and spot-check employees anywhere in the world. It’s as if an instructor were instantly in the room with them.”
Roar
For e-commerce providers, Roar could be your new best friend. Unlike other AR-generated applications, Roar is a content management platform designed to help brands feed AR-driven content to their audience.
“With ROAR Editor, you can build AR campaigns in just a few clicks and publish it across multiple platforms,” says CEO Oksana Sokolovsky. “Using our Data Analytics Dashboard, you can then track your user engagement, drive customer conversion and derive valuable insights for your business.
For e-commerce brands wanting to upgrade their own AR game, Roar helps its users build AR experiences for their customers by creating a space for designers to overlay their real-world products with cool sounds, animations and 3D modelling.
Better still, each creation can then be published on a number of different platforms, ranging from Snapchat to Instagram.
Pokémon GO
We can’t talk about popular AR apps on the market without mentioning Pokémon GO! As one of the pioneers of AR-based gaming, Pokémon GO has become something of a smartphone sensation in 2023.
As of May this year, the app was home to a staggering 80 million players, rendering it one of the hottest games on the market, even if it was released nearly a decade ago.
Drawing success from a mix of AR and geolocation technology, the masterminds behind Pokémon GO have seen the mobile game generate more than $6 billion from lifetime player spending.
Allowing its players to navigate their own real-life surroundings, the game simply places Pokémon within geographic hotspots that users can follow, find and catch. Enhancing gaming like never before, Pokémon GO is one of many AR games blurring the lines between the virtual and reality in gameplay.
SketchAR
Last but not least, let’s take AR apps into the classroom. While there are many educational AR platforms on the market, SketchAR stuck out to us in our search for the best AR apps to invest in.
Aiding art students all over the globe, SketchAR requires only three things. A piece of paper, a pencil and a smartphone. SketchAR aims to help students unlock their artistic potential. With the ability to project virtual lines onto the paper in front of them, users can leverage the app to create accurate, computer-generated drawings in a real-life setting.
Whether you’re a cartoonist or a landscape lover, SketchAR can help finetune your art skills for a perfect finish every time.
What’s next for augmented applications?
From research to recreation, AR has transformed the way we use our smartphones. With the ability to scan the objects in front of us and learn about our surroundings in seconds, it’s no wonder that more users are jumping on board.
The question is, where could it go next? We’ve seen augmented reality seep its way into a number of industries, but we predict that the best is yet to come.
As demands for immersivity increase, It’s likely that AR will continue to dominate the social media scene, find its way into classrooms, and redefine company branding like never before. Teaming up with AI, VR and other forms of extended reality, we could be heading towards an era of 3D smartphone screens and a virtual tomorrow.
