Forget Pokemon Go. That’s kids’ stuff. Think instead about cardiology and the future of cities. Think about what it is to reinvent the shopping experience. Think about better bridges and more effective surgeries. Think about better surgeons. Think about more effective food distribution to nations in crisis, and more accurate strikes against terrorists. Think about less collateral damage and improved economic policies. Think about a trillion dollar industry. Think about fixing your engine in minutes after a roadside breakdown. This is the promised land of Augmented Reality (AR) app development.

At YML, we are at the forefront of AR app development. From innovative mobile augmented reality designs to transformative user experiences, we have the talent and tools needed for your next AR design project.

The future of Augmented Reality solutions

AR is a future within our grasp. Moreover, it’s a future tech investors have sunk billions into and is already transforming how we buy, design, perceive, and think. AR is not just a flag planted in the future of commerce, it is the future of how we’ll see.

With help from thought-leaders across the industry’s fields of marketing, tech, art, design, and medicine we ask you to consider these seven predictions for the top future uses of augmented reality solutions.

Ok, AR is coming, but what does it mean for me?

AR’s best weapon, iOS ARKit, will create a new, mobile Augmented Reality world

“The first thing to understand about AR is that it will change handheld computing,” says Charlie Fink, a writer at Forbes, “first by making things we are already doing much better and more social. The camera will become the primary mobile interface for many augmented reality app developers as they design their product. FB, Google Maps, and Snapchat will certainly take advantage of it for their AR designs, as will Apple itself (here’s another chance for them to revive Apple Maps).

In simplest terms, Apple’s iOS ARKit places a virtual world on top of the real one that is seen by your smartphone’s camera. For the best example of how this will alter your smartphone behavior, check out this Twitter user’s application in Maps. Watch the video and try not to think, “Wow, I will never get lost again.” But that’s just the beginning; that’s what we can do today.

Anyone who has ever assembled furniture, tried to figure out what is wrong with their car engine, or wondered more about a painting in front of them can easily understand the practical implications of having a virtual tutorial. Every sci-fi training scenario you’ve seen—from the X-Men’s DANGER ROOM at the mansion, to the woman in the red dress from the Matrix—is one step closer with iOS ARKit and AR app development. Whether we’re training doctors, mechanics, or CIA agents, immersing them in virtual surroundings has never been so easy, thorough, or practical with the implementation of mobile augmented reality.

Wonder what’s over the horizon? Your smartphone and iOS ARKit can literally show you.

Furthermore, iOS ARKit’s ease of use will encourage more augmented reality app development, compounding scalability. The integration of AR design into every app, on every phone, will “Make the magic happen,” says Glen Gilmore, named by Forbes as a top 20 digital media influencer. “AR will move from fun games we sometimes play to rich content and capabilities we always use.” The key here is “always,” as in part of our every day, as a part of any app. This is how AR will scale massively and irrevocably.

That sounds like a lot of tech and not a lot of fun, except….

The world, including work, will become a game through AR design

Everyone loves games! It’s ingrained into our culture and brains from a young age. Gamification will be key to the adoption of augmented reality solutions: whether it’s sales or customer-service tasks introducing concepts like points, rewards, and scoreboards can make learning AR extremely fun and addictive.

Jobs — everything from waiters up-selling wine to retail employees restocking shelves — can be influenced by AR design. “Brands have already discovered the benefits of gamifying their mobile apps or products, increasing user engagement and brand loyalty. Now, businesses can use the same technique to help employees feel more invested in their work, more motivated to complete daily tasks, and happier in their jobs,” says Daniel Newman, Futurum’s founding partner. He adds:

“Create a mobile AR system with scoreboards or game-like elements that react to objects or actions in the employee’s real-world environment, and let top performers earn immediate rewards or accrue points that can be turned in for later rewards, such as gift cards or paid time off. Gamify sales and customer service training by using AR to place employees in realistic situations, and then reward correct answers and behaviors.”

How does this translate into dollars and cents for brands and businesses?

Augmented Reality in e-commerce redefines its borders

Of course, search marketing is just the first step in a redefinition of what e-commerce can be. Investors haven’t sunk $1.7 Billion into the VR and AR design and development market for no reason. The potential is enormous - a 2015 study by Walker Sands concluded that 35 percent of consumers said they would shop more online if they could interact with products virtually, and that was three years ago! As a recent Entrepreneur article explained, augmented reality solutions will make shopping more efficient, novel, and enjoyable in the following ways:

Usefulness – Sephora’s mobile augmented reality app uses ModiFace tech to let users take selfies and then virtually apply makeup to their faces before making a purchase decision.

Original ideas for the shopping experience – Apply Warby Parker’s “try-on” functionality, virtually, to a myriad of products.

Customizability – Stores famous for customer service, like Nordstrom, could enlist AR app developers to design products that make their sales reps available while browsing, at point of sale, in the dressing “room,” or even when matching a recently purchased item with one’s wardrobe.

“Consumers are on the edge of widespread AR adoption,” says Brad Waid, international speaker named as the #14 top influencer in Augmented Reality. “The world where Minority Report meets Joe Consumer is just around the corner.”

There is no end to the options: see your pizza cooking in the oven; have the chef take you through the tasty meal they designed; test to see whether the Barbie dreamhouse will fit in your child’s room; try the turning radius of a new car for your driveway…these all add up to a better, more thorough shopping experience. By leveraging augmented reality solutions, the result is more satisfied customers, more delight in the experience, more goodwill towards brands. With augmented reality in e-commerce shopping online goes from passive to active. Discover the impact that augmented reality app development can have on your success by enlisting our agency’s help in the design, development, and deployment. YML can assist you in becoming a leader in your industry with our award-winning AR mobile designs.

AR will let us see, try on, experiment with, and visualize the items we are looking to buy in a way that will render our current use of the word “search” redundant. You will be able to see inside the mall or the aisle, know the ripeness of the fruit, assess the chaos of the checkout line, before you ever leave your home. Life, especially consumerist life, is about decisions and they just got easier and better informed thanks to augmented reality in e-commerce.

“Augmented reality will contextualize our reality,” says AR expert Cathy Hackl.“This is the key. It will change not only the way the consumer experiences a brand but also change their behavior. You’ll start to see a shift in the way people shop for clothes with AR mirrors and AR apps that facilitate shopping for them.”

Partnering with a top augmented reality developer is the best way to ensure you provide customers with the ultimate e-commerce experience, and leverage this technology to yield maximum engagement and profits.

Ultimately, it all comes down to the product, which gets better, too.

Industrial Design gets a new engine thanks to Augmented Reality developers

Product design is one area where AR’s involvement is a virtual no-brainer. It will be a revolution.

Augmented reality solutions will empower designers to ditch 3D models and actually sit inside the cars that they’re creating.The cost of testing and experimenting drops dramatically. Designers can try more things; cars get better and cheaper (less R&D equals a lower price sticker).

And this is just cars. Imagine what can be done for shipping, nuclear facilities, electrical plants, large-scale farms and factories, or machines that make other machines.

“When you look at, for instance, a 3D model inside a computer screen, you can’t truly understand its size in relation to the objects around it or the space that it’s supposed to be used in,” says Steven McMurray, senior product strategist at YML. “AR will have an immediate impact in solving this problem.”

AR will allow designers to stop imagining their product, and to see it and its applications, shortcomings, and potential--long before they begin to build it.

So, this is just about selling people better things? No, we’re talking about…

AR design ensures safer and better working conditions

Economies, local or global, that depend on natural resources and manufacturing look to factories, mines, plants, and assembly lines as the vital arteries that carry their lifeblood. Augmented reality solutions will make these environments not only safer, but more productive and better equipped to deal with accidents.

Companies that are world leaders in professional-grade augmented reality app development, like DAQRI, have already produced a smart helmet that empowers workers and operators to become aware of unseen anomalies in their highly active, high-stress environments. Thanks to the helmet’s Intel processor, workers can collect environmental data to spot dangers well in advance of any potential breakdown, leak, or catastrophe.

Everywhere from the robotics assisted assembly lines in Detroit, to mega-factories in China, to potash mines in rural Canada, workers will be safer, more protected, and ultimately more productive thanks to the work of augmented reality developers.

That’s great for workers, but what about the rest of us?

Cities and their communities will benefit from AR app development

Everyday, cities collect and maintain huge amounts of data from how many people cross a street in a given day to traffic patterns to its criminal records. Now think about how AR apps can make the best use out of all of this data. Municipalities spend huge amounts of money planning for eventualities from the next big snow storm or something more caustic, like a terrorist attack, riots, the outbreak of an illness, or even a nuclear meltdown. They do this by simulating hypothetical situations and training their first responders accordingly. This is, simply put, the whole ballgame. The people in charge respond to emergencies the way they’ve been trained to.

Augmented reality app development will change and enhance this process. Police, fire departments, and health practitioners — as well as those who direct them — could be made to “see” how such scenarios play out through mobile augmented reality solutions. Naturally, this will help them respond more efficiently.

But there are larger implications for cities that leverage AR app development. After all, no matter how dire, emergencies are rare. Architects and city planners will confront and utilize an entirely new world of transportation grids and cityscape models that utilize AR design to demonstrate to clients, city councils, and other officials.

Are there any benefits for the world at large?

Higher-level healthcare - mobile Augmented Reality provides access for millions

“As a former Registered Nurse, I am bullish on Augmented Reality and its future uses,” says Tamara McCleary, CEO of a sought-after tech and health marketing agency. She points to the fact that 40 percent of nurses fail on the simple process of IV insertion on the first try. “Now we have at our fingertips AR devices on the market right now that externally visualize the vein of a patient and show the healthcare provider a clear 3D outline of the exact location of the patient’s veins and their precise anatomic structure. Your healthcare provider can see where the valves of the vein are located along the entire blood vessel, enabling a near perfect placement of the needle in just one perfect stick.”

We’re talking about IVs, the starting point of medical procedures. Imagine the possibilities with stents, brain surgery, ablations, and ligament repair once the potential of augmented reality solutions in healthcare are harnessed. “The incredible consumer relevance for anyone being able to harness the power of AR for surgery is limitless,” says McCleary.

An injured ligament is a perfect, layered example: AR is employed by the doctor to enhance the success of the surgery, and then by the patient during physical therapy. Mobile augmented reality could be used to creates guides for exercises, helping to hasten repair time, and prevent against re-injury—all the while gamifying the process.

It’s not just about the market either. She points to situations where a doctor is not available, where citizens or soldiers are forced to perform procedures. “Augmented reality actually shows you on a 3D image what to do, where to cut, how deep, what it should look like.” Moreover, for the 5 billion people worldwide who do not have access to safe and affordable surgery, “The lifesaving capacity and true hope that AR brings is mind-blowing to say the least.”

Conclusion

Augmented Reality is coming to every phone, app, and quite possibly, every surface in our lives. It will redirect us, guide us, and help us make better choices, not only in a consumer context, but in our quotidian lives.

New AR designs will change healthcare, production, design, marketing, advertising, and the entire shopping experience. It will change how we learn and how we communicate. It will change everything. AR will become inseparable from our apps and phone functions. As augmented reality app development continues on its path towards even greater innovation, this technology will evolve beyond mobile devices. Then, it’s true potential as a universal technology can be more fully realized by augmented reality developers, businesses, and individuals alike.

These changes are coming. It’s time to prepare. And then innovate the next change. Contact YML today about how we can help develop and launch your AR design.