Whereas Virtual Reality's future as a viable technology, taken up by the general public is still being decided. Augmented Reality's future is decidedly brighter. It's easy to see why. It's easier to implement. Easier to deploy and has far more potential applications for the public.
Whereas only a comparative few have invested in obtaining access to Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality access hardware has been adopted by everyone. Everyone who is reading this article, and almost everyone you've met in the past few years has invested in Augmented Reality technology. Without even being aware they've done it.
People know it as the smart-phone.
Augmented reality will take some time to get right, but I do think that it's profound.
Tim Cook
The massive take up of hardware capable of AR is a by-product of the age, so the hardest part, getting people to invest in the technology was done for us. If you were to ask a passer-by in the street, if they would buy an "Augmented Reality" device, most would probably shake their head. Ask those same people if they would invest in a smart-phone. They would probably laugh and put theirs out from their jacket pocket and say they already have one. The selling of the hardware. The act of getting the pubic to adopt the technology has been done without us having to lift a finger.
The public has already, unwittingly picked a side in the battle between AR & VR, (see: VR vs AR: The Battle for Global Supremacy) with their wallets.
Augmented Reality is much more accessible to users. Not just because the hardware is already ubiquitous, but it is also easier to integrate into a users experience of the hardware. There is practically no learning curve. In the vast majority of AR users, all they have to do is point the device at a marker or object and the rest is done automatically. With VR, unless creating VR applications is what you do for a living, the process to use VR is completely alien.
VR by it's very nature, closes off the individual from the outside world. An experience completely detached from reality and disconcerting at least in the beginning for many people. AR by contrast uses the outside world. In fact, it needs the outside world to be able to work in the first place.
AR has a million potential applications. And with clever use by developers, could become a valid part of everyday lives. Just as the smart-phone itself has become for many of us, almost an extension of ourselves.
Now the trick is for us as content creators not to screw it up by turning a viable technology into nothing into a gimmick. Reducing AR to nothing more than something geared towards selling one wrong headed proprietary technology or another.
Everyone who's ever created something within a particular technology dreams of it becoming the market leader. For it to become mainstream, to the point that when someone thinks of a particular technology, their brand or technology is the first thing that is though of.
But making the technology less accessible is what will kill this emerging technology and ruin it for all of us.
Now is the time for us as AR content creators to mature this technology. Give compelling reasons why anyone outside of the AR technology industry will bother to give it the time of day.
It's an exciting time. Anyone of us could become the next AR millionaire with our innovation. But we should not let that desire take precedence over giving the general public the very best AR has to offer. If our idea is worth it, the money will come.