Paris Subways and London Buses Get App Store’s First Augmented Reality iPhone Apps

Thursday, August 27, 2009

The wait is over. Augmented reality apps have landed in the App Store.

Paris Metro Subway and London Buses have released updates that not only give their apps push notification, but augmented reality function as well.
These apps allow the iPhone users to detect metatags for bus stops, subway stations, and point of interests right from it’s camera view. When a user places a building into the view of his iphone camera, A tag for a point of interest such as Mc Donald’s should hover before it. These tags are set so only points of interest that are within 1 kilometer of the iPhone will appear.

This comes in handy especially for tourists, unfamiliar with their surroundings, to quickly find landmarks of importance. With augmented reality, tour guides may be out of jobs as the iPhone can do all the work for them, giving tourists freedom to explore point of interests and attractions around them.

These apps may also be helpful for locals unfamiliar with their surroundings. If someone needs to look for the nearest bus station or subway exit, just swing their iPhone around. Augmented reality will point him or her to the right direction.

Augmented reality is only supported by the iPhone 3GS. It should only have been available with the iPhone OS version 3.1, which is not yet available. However, rumors say Presselite, the two apps’ developer, may have used third party codes or software to implement augmented reality, allowing them to be the first apps to be downloaded with augmented reality function.

London Buses also sell layers via in-app purchases, allowing users to add specific points of interests. It will be interesting to see how the layers business will advance augmented reality. In the very near future, we can expect tourists to use augmented reality to guide and explore their surroundings. Moving forward, perhaps our shopping, dining, and even every aspect of our social life will be affected by augmented reality on the iPhone.

Look below for a video on augmented reality in action.