It's a fun tech, but I fail to see any real world value that can be derived from it. I have worked on AR stuff before and found some niche uses, but I am having real trouble finding general commercial applications apart from fun and games.
* Tourism of any kind (think AR museum or city tours)
* Location and event discovery -- as of late there have been quite a few startups trying to capitalize on giving people things to do, but none successful. This is definitely on Snap's radar with their acquisition of Vurb[1] and Placed[2]
* Interactive public art -- Paris has something like this[3] and I really want to see these types of ARGs spread to other cities
* E-commerce -- superimposing clothing or furniture[4] onto the real world
Also, why are fun and games not valid applications? Epic Games, for example, is worth 4.5bn. Interactive media is finally being recognized by the mainstream, and it's just getting started :)
[1] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/vurb [2] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/placed [3] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/flashinvaders/id895180919 [4] https://www.amazon.com/adlp/arview
You would probably use the same kind of applications, but you'll be able to have 1000 windows open at the same time, located all around your room, easily accessible (just turn your head).
All those gimmicky 'AR applications' are gimmicks. The real use case is replacing our tiny displays.
It actually details how it’s used now to verify ships after construction to ensure that everything is in its right place. They do this by overlaying the schematics on top of the actual ship during inspection. I don’t remember the numbers (read the article a while ago) but the savings and accuracy gains by introducing this were significant.
AR is literally real life holograms, there's amazing amounts of applications. Everything you do on your smartphone today can be blown up into AR applications.
the construction industry will benefit hugely from AR.