West Coast Vinyl Augmented Reality App

West Coast Vinyl Augment Reality app for the mobile device is completed. Actually not, sorry we’re not as quick as Yelp who has just snuck in their AR app to iTunes app store for the iPhone 3GS in the last week of August. (I know we’re late)

The undisclosed new feature allows iPhone 3Gs owners to shake their phones three times to turn on a view called “the Monocle.” This view uses the phone’s GPS and compass to display markers for restaurants, bars and other nearby businesses on top of the camera’s view.

Yelp may be the first company to provide AR apps available in the U.S. Elsewhere Layar and Wikitude, two European companies offering multi-purpose AR browsers, both have Android AR apps that include content for the United States, but neither company has released an iPhone app yet. Layar’s CEO said that they were testing an iPhone version of his company’s software and that it was “very fast.”

Building a little AR into an already established app seems to be the method of choice for sneaking AR into the app store, because the sales on apps downloads is astronomical. Originally Apple wasn’t going to have any AR apps available until sometime in Sept with the new OS for iPhone 3GS.

The best use case for this Yelp app is not for finding businesses out of sight, but for pointing your phone at businesses you are physically near and discovering Yelp reviews of those places.

Now with West Coast Vinyl AR apps we are working on a layar that will show the data of a home energy efficient window. Such as the glazing type, low-e coating, gas fills, operating types, and frames. A far fetch one is possibly show how much heat is escaping from the windows or how much cool air or heat is inside the home. All this by pointing your iPhone camera at the window and room. This is in the works.