Emergence of AR Applications

In the recent couple of years, I’ve mentioned in conversation with fellow engineers and technologists that I believe augmented reality (AR) has great practical potential to improve how we live and work.

Last week, I got to experience that myself for the first time, in a practical way, when I wanted to quickly get walking directions to a local taco shop, via my Android phone.

Google Maps presented me with the option to get walking directions via AR.

I gotta say, the experience was phenomenal, despite multiple heads up mentioning it was still in preview mode.

The recognition of my position and orientation on a street was a breeze, quick and very smooth. ( I’m assuming it was using location data in combination with visual cues matching to street view data?)

The app also suggested I put the phone down, to focus on what’s in front of me, instead of trying to walk with the phone in my hand, pointing straight. When I followed the app’s instructions, the interface changed back from a viewfinder like state (with AR overlay arrows and endpoint bubbles for my destination), to a regular maps experience.

Try it out yourself!

(side story: while I was using the app to turn the last corner, while I had the phone held up, a passerby paused and let me observe the surroundings with my phone. When I noticed him pausing, I apologized and suggested he continue on. He suggested I finish taking my selfie, to which I replied that I was using Google’s Maps AR experience to navigate. His reply was “Wow, sounds intense”. My guess is we’ll be seeing more folk on the street mistaking the AR navigators with folk taking selfies, which is the more common notion nowadays).

Focused applications

As a follow up to the Feb 18th post on “What’s Next”, I wanted to highlight this article from Endgadget, which goes along with my thought that the development of specific, narrow use-cases is one of the “next things” in technology. These can be developed on platforms, or developed by individual small teams as startups, and then integrated by the big players into their ecosystem.

Example [1]:

Google Photos / Camera app improving their capabilities to allow their users to crop out unnecessary background, when they are trying to capture receipts. I would think this took some user research and/or feedback from the community, after which that product team at Google decided to develop and roll out functionality to cater to that use-case and thereby, that user-base.

https://www.engadget.com/2019/03/29/google-photos-clear-pictures-receipts-crop-adjust-documents/

Example [2]:

A bit more well-known and older, but still solid - Shazam.

https://www.shazam.com/apps

It has strong focus on allowing its users to “capture and identify music”. Eventually it expanded into TV sounds, commercials, etc. But the point is - that team must have had a very specific use-case in mind, and they nailed it with their user community.

Then, Apple picked them up, to add to their story.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/24/17896350/apple-shazam-app-acquisition-complete-free

Lots of apps will claim similar focus, but are usually not nearly enough.

I’ll expand on this topic more…

Will cover my belief that the best mobile apps have a single purpose.

Helpful wearables

I had to get a new thermometer while battling the flu the other day. When looking on the shelf at the local CVS, I came across a reasonably priced smart thermometer, called Kinsa, and decided to try it out.

It was a very positive experience, all the way from setup via Bluetooth. 

Especially pleasant (I'd go as far as calling it a delightful UX), was the way the application opened up and instead of jumping into the typical homescreen, dashboard, or menu initial screen -- it had a conversation with me, through a super simple chat interface. After answering a few questions, my user profile was created and the app was ready to help me, with my single need of taking a medical device reading (in this case, temperature), and suggesting some next steps based on that (should I call the doctor? are my symptoms serious?) - which is all that I wanted from this app and device. 

Hats off to the Kinsa team for designing this experience, and obviously testing it, to make sure it's as easy and useful for all of us to use. 

It made my life easier and I'm grateful for having this product available in the local pharmacy. 

The experience and guidance that it provided beyond a traditional thermometer, was well worth the premium extra couple of bucks it cost.