For today’s ultimate guide we’ll focus on augmented reality browsers. The holder of the best augmented reality browser for 2009 is of course Wikitude which was voted no.1 in the Augmented Planet Readers Choice Awards, so who should we be looking out for in 2010?

WhereMark
WhereMark is a relatively new arrival but has already caught the eye.
Plus points, great UI, innovative pinch and stretch zoom, search across multiple categories. Negative points, difficult to see what category is selected, switches between portrait and landscape.

Verdict well worth installing

WhereMark iPhone Augmented Reality Browser

Yell Labs

Another new entry, visually looks fantastic. I really love the lock-on effect where the targeting targeting reticle locks on to a POI. The search criteria is also presented nicely and it’s easy to perform a one click search.

Yell AR (UK ONLY)

While it looks great it is not without problems. The initial search range is set ridiculously low and it took an accident before I figured out that there is a hidden menu on the right hand side of the screen that controls range.

Data accuracy, I know I moan about a lot about this, but pressing the Indian restaurants button reveals 10 matches. 6 of which are Chinese restaurants, 1 is a grill, 2 are Indian restaurants, and one KFC. If you are going to go to the effort of having dedicated search buttons the least you could do is ensure that the data is going to be correct.

While Yell looks good, as you use it you’ll see that the application feels empty. There is no map for example so navigation is difficult and once you have your POI selected very little information is given, in my tests nothing more than the ability to place a phone call was shown.

Verdict, disappointing from Yell you would expect better accuracy, but worth installing and showing your friends the cool lock-on feature.

Zagat To Go
This is another visually stunning app, the ability to scroll A La Street View through the results is pretty cool. Zagat also has a review system so you’ll know if the restaurant you are visiting is any good.  It’s difficult to find a downside to this app other than the price ($9.99), but 89 reviews out of 107 give the application 4 stars or above so they must be doing something right.

Verdict, cool app if you are looking for a high quality application to find places to eat and you are not on a budget then well worth getting.

Zagat To Go

ARgo
Another new browser launched in early February. Search is performed by dedicated buttons which orientate themselves to either portrait or landscape depending on how you hold your device. Searching for Indian restaurants returns a good set of results, all of which actually look like they are Indian restaurants (no KFCs).  As you can search POIs from different categories the compass has a nice touch where each POI is identified by a different colour.

The downside, the POIs in the camera window were pretty difficult to select. POIs were often place on top of each other making it impossible to select those that were further way. There is also no map so no navigation.

Verdict, not really tested in anger. Needs work on selecting POIs

Acrossair multifunctional browser

Acrossair
The Acrossair browser feels like it’s a collection of different AR applications rather than a single app. You can find the nearest tweets, wiki’s, search for restaurants or if you’re in a social the mood you can share your location with your buddies via facebook, twitter, or email. There is even an option to find where you left your car.

There is a good collection of functionality here but it feels like a bit of a jumble. With applications, presentation is often everything. If a user doesn’t like the look and feel they wont come back no matter how good the app is. Here the developers have gone for just putting everything into a list and it feels like it has just be thrown together, it really doesn’t do it any justice.

Verdict, worth installing just for the car locator application

Other world browsers.

• Robotvision
• Bionic Eye
• Nearest Places
• Worksnug

Augmented Reality Browsers

And The Rest

In Rouli’s (ARTimes.net) predictions for 2010 I predicted that everyone would have augmented reality browser functionality by the end of the year, so expect this list to grow. In the meantime if you are looking for even more browsers, try these.

• iNeedCoffee
• A Cafe View
• BUL
• Spot Crime – see where crimes are taking place around you. (US only I believe)
• Stella Artois
• Urban spoon
• Nearest Wiki
• Cyclopedia
• buUuk
• Nearby Navigator
• Ristoranti d’Italia del Gambero Rosso
• Wiki(Ar)
• Taiwan Food AR
• Compass Camera
• A Nearby View
• Huckleberry
• Beijing Discovery AR

Random browsers, find bars, find crime. It's all good

Related posts:

1. Augmented Reality Browsers Innovation & Best Practices
2. Ultimate Guide To iPhone Augmented Reality Part I
3. Ultimate Guide To iPhone Augmented Reality Part II

Having had a chance to test the released version I have to say they have done a pretty good job and lived up to my expectations.

The application is a landscape app, as soon as it loads you are presented with a very simple UI with the compass in the bottom right and an options icon in the bottom left. Clicking the options icon brings up a snazzy interface that controls the search criteria without removing the camera view. At first I struggled with trying to switch to the map view, trying the usual mix of laying the iPhone flat and waiting for the view to change but it didn’t take too long to figure out that to switch you just click the compass icon.

In the options menu you wont find any options to control the search range, instead you’ll use the screens multi touch to drag the range to the required distance. This has the cool effect of making the results icons in the camera view get larger or smaller which gives you a sense of scale. As you use the application regularly you’ll no doubt build up a list of favorites, your home, local bar, friends house etc. At the touch of a button these can be saved as favorites (called WhereMarks) and called up for future use.

Like Wikitude you can search across multiple sources at any one time and the search results are easily identified so you’ll know which POI has found the result. Searches include: bars, restaurants, tubes (subways) stations, train stations, bus terminals, attractions, Wikipedia and a free text web search.

The data accuracy is generally good, when using the restaurants POI it passed my benchmark of finding my local Indian restaurant (though it missed the Chinese opposite) , it did however fail to find most of my local bars using the bars POI and interestingly my local Indian restaurant showed up in the bars results. These faults can’t be attributed to the application, if you have read any of my previous head to head challenges you’ll know that all the augmented reality browsers use different data sources and often give up strange results.

As with all first versions there are a couple of niggly bits, generally the app is polished and I feel I am going out my way to be picky but here goes. Firstly, I complained about Wikitude and Layar only showing kilometers so its only fair to point out that WhereMark only uses miles. Great for the US and UK but annoying for the rest of Europe. Also in the picky department, while the augmented reality part of the application is in landscape, it does switch to portrait when you view the map or click a search result for more information so you’ll constantly be rotating your phone. Finally the search icons are difficult to see whether they are active or inactive, I found myself turning them on and off repeatedly. On a bright sunny day outside it would be impossible to tell so it would be worth introducing some color to highlight when they are active.

Augmented reality browsers come and go, some show promise and then disappear into obscurity never to be updated again. I really hope that the WhereMark guys don’t become one of these and keep up the development. I am impressed so far and it’s definitely an app that will stay on my phone and be included in future augmented reality browser head to head challenges. WhereMark isn’t a Layar or Wikitude killer just yet but it does feel like it could become a worthy rival.

WhereMark is free and can be installed from the Apple AppStore.

Watch the preview video

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MfQ8xehME

Related posts:

1. WhereMark For The iPhone
2. Wikitude World Browser Update – Quick Look
3. Wikitude 4 For The Android With Video

WhereMark is a new augmented reality browser application that is coming to the iPhone soon. Like all the other world browsers out there WhereMark shows you what is around you in your current location, but WhereMark has a few differences that will make it an interesting alternative. For a start, WhereMark is customizable and allows you to create your own POIs of any location of interest, you could create a WhereMark of the location of your house and you’ll always know how far away you are and in which direction. It’s actually very useful being able to add your own POIs and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the number one feature request other augmented reality browsers providers receive. The good news with WhereMark you’ll be creating your own POIs and within no time you’ll have a full list of all your favorites.

WhereMark Augmented Reality iPhone Application

Another nice feature is being able to use the iPhones multi touch to extend the range of the WhereMarks shown, by default the application will show you what is around you in a half mile radius but using intuitive multi touch you can extend the map to cover a larger radius for wider search results. It’s a feature so intuitive to iPhone users I am surprised the other browsers out there haven’t taken the same approach instead of having the user navigating through menu items. WhereMark also features Google local search so searching for pizza will present you with an augmented reality view of the local pizza restaurants.

How does WhereMark compare to the other browsers out there?  WhereMark are not positioning themselves as a platform for developers so they don’t compete with Layar or Wikitude who both have open APIs. Where I think they fit and do a very good job is competing with services like Yelp and providing users with useful relevant information on the things they are looking for. If you are using Yelp and the augmented reality Monocle feature you can only see bars, restaurants or everything with no option to filter for what you really want to see. So no option to see just pizza restaurants without every other restaurant in the area showing up in the display. Another clear win for WhereMark.

While WhereMark is not available yet but it does look interesting and would appear to be a viable alternative to Yelp.

I’m looking forward to giving it a road test when it’s available.

Check out WhereMark

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MfQ8xehME

WhereMark.com

Related posts:

1. WhereMark Augmented Reality Browser
2. Ultimate Guide To iPhone Augmented Reality – Part III Browsers
3. Hidden iPhone Augmented Reality Feature