Our Top 5 ARKit Apps – For Now

Think AR Apps are all fun and games? Think wrong! Although about 35% are games there are a number of brands out there sporting the new ARKit technology, from enhancing social media experiences to better showcasing brand stories.

With the recent release of iOS 11 and ARKit many brands are seeing the power of 3-D elements and immersive experiences. Keep in mind, we are at the VERY beginning stages of this technology so there are very limited Apps available, but so far the first wave of Apps seem promising. Here are our “right now” top 5 that we have been playing around with:

1. HOUZZ 

Interior design App Houzz does a great job of incorporating their “view in my room 3-D” into their already existing catalogues. We applaud design companies like Houzz and Magnolia for not creating separate App experience for AR. We all know it’s hard enough to get the customer to install one App, let’s not make them jump through more hoops or silo the experiences. Houzz was already a great interior design tool with many brands to choose from to help design dream spaces, and this is a great example of tasteful enhancement by leveraging AR.

2. PorscheAR 
Cars are sexy, and therefore great material for AR. A lot of the lure of luxury is picturing ourselves with that item (handbag, jewelery, car) and AR gets us one step closer to that reality. The Porsche AR App lets you customize your vehicle’s color, materials, upgrades and model, and it’s a lot more fun to do this when you can walk around the car vs. 2-D experience. They also get bonus points in our books for adding haptic feedback on customization element changes. This enhances the user experience and is also needed integration to draw the user’s’ attention back to what is being customized.

3. Burberry 

Burberry’s App features fashion favorite artist Danny Sangra’s illustrations. Users can creatively collage the illustrations into the Burberry world and export to share on social.

This is a fun, fresh way to interact with a classic luxury brand. It’s also an example of how simple it can be to include AR experience in-App. They didn’t need 3-D models or any overly technically elements to create the experience.

4. Quartz 

A news App is not the most likely place or really the kind of App we imagine would be in the first 100 in the App store with AR, but it does make sense based on Quartz’s quirky and experimental way of delivering news in the first place. If you’ve never tried it out, Quartz news delivers in text based mini-updates with emojis and more. With the most recent update they have included 3-D interactives in the chat stream as well.

5. Patron 

If you follow our newsletter you might have already seen the Patrón experience which takes you into agave fields of Jalisco, Mexico. This App is great because it immerses the user into the brand story of Patrón, and helps tell the Patrón story in a new and exciting way. It could have gone a bit deeper into the experience,  giving you the ability to further interact with some of the elements or the ability to walk through the fields, but we won’t be too picky YET, we are excited by the possibilities and know that brands are just starting to understand how to use this technology.

We look forward to the second wave of Apps being released closer to the iPhone X release on November 3. We can’t wait and we’ll be sure to share our next round of favorite Apps following that. So be sure to come back and check it out!