It’s Here! Yelp’s Secret Augmented Reality Mode

Friday, August 28, 2009

Want to try out the new Augmented Reality on the iPhone? You are in luck America. After the English and the French got their first augmented reality apps, somebody discovered that in the Yelp iPhone app, when you shake the iPhone one to three times, a secret augmented reality mode, “monocle” will appear on the upper right hand corner of the yelp app. Just touch the button and you are able to enjoy the first free augmented reality app on the iPhone.

Yelp’s augmented reality mode allows the user to find restaurants, bars, and other points of interest using iPhone’s camera mode. The Yelp app allows user to see the direction and distance of user reviewed establishments. This would come in very handy when choosing a good restaurant on a crowded block. Just choose the ones with good reviews and having a good time shouldn’t be a problem. Wow, wait a minute, is augmented reality already changing the way we spend money on eating out?

Yelp’s augmented reality mode is an Easter egg. It could have been sneaked in there so it wouldn’t be discovered by app reviewers as AR apps shouldn’t have been released before the OS 3.1 update. Some say that this function was not mentioned by Yelp because the app may be still in beta, and not fully ready for prime time. It could also be a marketing gimmick, as this Easter egg news is sure to generate lots of buzz and give Yelp instant popularity among iPhone users. Whatever the reason for keeping it a secret, hundreds and thousand’s of people are now using the Yelp app to try out this new augmented reality mode. But be warned, this app, along with all upcoming augmented reality apps only works on the new iPhone 3GS. iPhone 3G owners now have a reason to upgrade to the new hardware after all.