Augmented Reality – In this day and age, it’s rare to see people looking up locations on physical, paper maps. In fact, you’ll probably get some odd looks if you do that…
Instead, most people use some sort of GPS, such as Waze, Google Maps, Maps by Apple and more. As if it couldn’t get any more advanced than asking Siri for directions to the nearest coffee shop, Google is currently experimenting with augmented reality (AR) technology that could mean a major breakthrough for the company and the AR industry as a whole.
Google is working on augmented walking directions on Google Maps. These “Google Lens-like AR features” offer “improved walking directions and place information through the smartphone camera” (Sterling, 2019).
This could offer AR a better chance to thrive, since society has to yet to widely accept and incorporate AR technology. Other AR-influenced apps like Pokémon Go, Yelp, and various retailers haven’t been able to really drive significant consumer behavior change through their AR features.
But, as a Google product that serves more than one billion global customers, Google Maps could change the game for AR. Google posted in a blog, “…we believe the ability to overlay directions over the real world environment offers an exciting and useful way to use the technology that already exists in your pocket” (Sterling, Google, 2019).
Now, we’ll just have to wait and see if Google’s AR-enhanced Google Maps is successful once- or if- it launches. Stay tuned!
