Metro Paris iPhone application

Metro Paris Subway isn’t the only iPhone app to use augmented reality. A pair of upcoming apps from iPhone developer Acrossair for navigating the New York City Subway and London Underground will use augmented reality in a similar nammer. Acrossair is also hard at work on another app that will show other local points of interest using augmented reality.

Last week, Android developer Layar took its augmented reality app for Android phones global. And a newly discovered easter egg in the Yelp app for iPhone enables an augmented reality component.

If you want to find out more about augmented reality, Wired’s Brian X. Chen wrote a farily lengthy (but worth reading) post on the topic for Wired’s Gadget Lab blog. Meanwhile, Liam Cassidy has a more skeptical take on augmented reality apps over at The Apple Blog.

Me, I think augmented reality has a lot of potential. It can display information in new and unique ways. Highly visual city guide apps for iPhone is one example, and in his Wired post, Brian Chen notes that researchers and developers are toying around with other uses for augmented reality, such as apps with movie tie-ins, games, and more. [MacWorld]

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