From Editor and Publisher:
“There are some uses in industrial settings: manufacturing, field servicing of equipment, but beyond that it remains mostly a curiosity,” Richmond said. “We’re still in experimentation mode. If people are looking for AR ‘solutions’ they aren’t going to find them. If, however, the newspaper industry wants to experiment with this new medium—and I think it is critical that they do, as not every AR solution will generalize across content/context areas—then the time is now as we’re still early.”
“Right now, phone apps are somewhat clunky and certainly aren’t immersive,” said USC’s Richmond. “Consumers don’t like to change, so AR needs to be easy and cheap. We still haven’t solved the issues around how to craft an AR experience that has low friction, easy to use and high efficacy that accomplishes a goal. Information overload and cognitive tunneling are two issues that AR struggles with, and user experience design will be key and an ongoing effort.”
For it to provide a truly immersing experience may require a move beyond an intermediate device such as phone/tablet, but that is likely to increase the costs.
“Once AR glasses (such as Google Glass) go through a couple of iterations, and the content experience/user experiences become better understood, we’ll see widespread adoption,” Richmond predicted. “Figure five years plus or minus.”