50 iOS Augmented Reality Apps to inspire your next idea
With more companies investing in this technology and tech giants like Apple, Google and Facebook providing better and better tools for developers to easily create augmented reality apps, here is a list of iOS apps from different industries to inspire you.
🛋 Furniture/Home
1.Houzz Home Design & Renovation— This design and renovation community is taking advantage of the power of AR by extending the experience to 3D. You can filter the products that have this feature and quickly add products to your shopping cart.
2.Wayfair-Shop All Things Home— Furniture, décor, lighting and more, all available to test out in your space before buying. The company has seen that people are 3.4x more likely to buy a product that has the view in 3D feature.
3.Ikea Place — Virtually place true-to-scale 3D models from the Swedish ready-to-assemble furniture store. This is probably the go-to app example for many people when it comes to AR usefulness.
4.Chairish-Furniture & Decor — High quality vintage home décor, furniture, art and more in the palm of your hands. With the “View in Your Space” feature you can preview the items in your home.
💄 Beauty
5.Makeup — Modiface is a leader in tech beauty with an advanced 3D virtual make-up, color and skin diagnosis service. The company was acquired by L’Oreal one year ago and it now powers multiple apps from companies like Amazon, Snap Inc., Instagram, Redken, Garnier, Giorgio Armani and many more. Modiface currently has 4 in-house apps on the AppStore: Makeup, Virtual Nail Salon, Eye Color Studio and Hair Color.
6.Matrix Professional — With the Matrix Virtual Hair Color Try On feature you can test out different hair shades before making a commitment.
👕 Clothing/Accessories
7.Wanna Kicks — The sneaker community loves this try-on app of new drops and classics with augmented reality, featured in TechCrunch, HypeBeast, HighSnobiety and more.
8.Gucci — Discover their season’s collection in an immersive 3D experience and try on the brand’s sneakers, lipsticks, sunglasses and décor. The creative fashion brand brings a lot of fun AR powered experiences for their customers.
9.Glasses by Warby Parker— Being able to virtually try on glasses and sunglasses is such a convenient way to find the perfect frames that suit you.
10.Diamond Hedge —An accessible way to try on different diamond shapes, ring setting and carat size.
🛠 Tools
11.Measure app — Turn your iOS device into a tape measure. Draw lines and get estimated measurements of objects in the real world and automatically get dimensions for rectangular objects.
12.MagicPlan — Easily scan your room and create a floor plan so you can estimate cost and materials, add 3D models and make virtual tours. This app is downloaded by over 17 million users and the #1 in iPhone Utilities in 76 countries and #1 in iPad Utilities in 104 countries.
13.Google Translate — This app is making travelers and expats lives so much easier, and it’s using AR to offer live translations using the phone camera. All you have to do is open the Camera view from the app and point at the text you want translated.
14.CARROT Weather —Highly acclaimed weather app overflowing with personality, lets you bring CARROT into the real world.
15.iScape — Specialized for helping you design your outdoor living area, this app is praised by Forbes, The New York Times and many more.
16.Sun Seeker Tracker & Compass — Many great applications with this solar tracking and compass app. Gardeners can find optimal locations for their plants, photographers can plan photo sessions based on the lighting conditions they want, real estate buyers can check beforehand the sun exposure in different parts of a property and many more.
17.Vuforia Chalk — Used by technicians and experts to provide technical support or friends and families to help each other remotely, this app has a simple idea that can be useful in so many scenarios. Forbes called it “The Future of Education, Service and Support”.
18.INKHUNTER Try Tattoo Designs — Try on virtual tattoos with this augmented reality app before they are inked forever on your skin. You can try your own designs or chose from a gallery, #NOMOREREGRETS.
🚘 Cars
19.Sygic GPS Navigation & Maps — The Real View Navigation feature will give you a better and safer driving experience using augmented reality.
20.Porsche AR Visualizer — Experience your dream Porsche at any time, everywhere. Customize and place your own Porsche in your living room or in front of your garage. You can also learn more about the Porsche design DNA in interior and exterior.
21.Edmunds-Shop Cars For Sale — This popular car buying app offers a feature that makes it easier to visualize and determine if a vehicle will fit in your garage, parking space or driveway.
🧁 Food/drinks
22.Food Network In the Kitchen — Decorating cupcakes in this top recipes app could be a good activity for parents to give their kids while cooking.
23.The Patrón Experience — A great example of how AR can boost brand awareness, you can learn about the history and heritage of the Patrón brand.
👩🏫 Education
24.JigSpace — Is a great educational platform that has an immersive 3D experience using augmented reality. Users are loving this app as it brings a new dimension to learning.
25.Complete Anatomy Platform ’20 — Recognized by world’s leading colleges and anatomists, this awarded app aims to transform the medical learning by letting your visualize the complexities of the human body with augmented reality.
26.Human Anatomy Atlas 2020 — Another great example of a medical learning app with over 10.000 anatomical models, this is a must have app if you are in the medical field or plan to be.
27.Civilisations AR — BBC’s first augmented reality app lets you explore and interact with realistic, to-scale artefacts and it marks the launch of the landmark arts and culture series, Civilisations.
28.Froggipedia — This awarded “iPad App of the Year” in 2018 by Apple, gives you the chance to learn about the anatomy and life cycle of frogs without causing harm to the little amphibians.
29.Piano 3D — Real AR Piano App — A new way to interact with music, this app is a popular piano learning tool and it shows how broad the use of augmented reality can be.
30.Sky Guide — Overlay constellations maps on top of the sky. This is an awarded and user’s favorite app with 4.9 stars from 151.9k ratings or, as CNET said, “close to perfect”. With a built-in compass you can locate and study thousands of stars, comets and satellites.
31.Bookful: Books for Kids — Make reading time with kids more fun by bringing the stories to life with this augmented reality enabled app.
32.Mondly — Another interesting take on AR can be seen in this language learning app where students can learn in a more interactive and fun way.
33.SketchAR: learn how to draw — Learn how to draw using computer vision merged together with augmented reality to speed up the learning process and make it more entertaining.
🎭 Entertainment
34.Snapchat — One of the top social media platforms out there now is using augmented reality face filters to let users change their looks, dance with 3D Bitmojis and even play games with their face. The company has plans to extend even more into a full AR utility platform, and the community they already have will facilitate this.
35.Instagram — Similar with Snapchat, Instagram offers filters and community filters to which you can get access by following the creators.
36.GIPHY World: AR GIF Stickers — Fill your world with GIFs, endless entertainment possibilities with this app.
37.Holo — This is simply a fun app. You can add holograms of real people and animals in your world, take pictures and share them with your friends.
38.3DBrush — Augmented Reality — Draw in augmented reality using photorealistic brushes.
39.Monster Park-AR Dino World — Observe and interact with lifelike dinosaurs and other creatures. Users are loving this for all the fun photos and videos you can create with the app.
👾 Games
40.Pokémon Go —Like there can’t be a list of AR apps without IKEA Place, there can’t be one without Pokémon Go either. This AR game brought more hype to this new technology.
41.Harry Potter: Wizards Unite — This long awaited app from the makers of Pokémon Go puts magic in the hands of players worldwide. What is really interesting about this app from an UX perspective is how they solved the issue of having to hold the phone up too much: when the augmented experience starts, you need to align the symbols on the screen and once they are aligned the app takes a snapshot of the real world. This way you can continue the experience without having to hold up the phone anymore.
42.Stack AR — Fantastic game for any age with beautiful graphics and sound effects, this game is highly praised by users and a great example where AR can bring extra niceness to a game.
43.AR Runner — Run through AR checkpoints and set new records. This app is a fun way to add some physical activity in your life.
“It’s short, fast, active fun, and an inventive use of ARKit” — Macworld
44.AR Dragon — We have come a long way from the nostalgic Japanese Tamagotchi digital pets, you can now have a more immersive experience with an augmented reality pet simulator.
45.Smash Tanks — With this fun game you can battle your friends and family in AR with 1 or 2 device multiplayer mode.
46.Angry Birds AR: Isle of Pigs — The developers of the mobile game phenomenon, Angry Birds, released a stand alone augmented reality app with the same classic gameplay that users fell in love with.
47.Lego AR Playgrounds — Blend physical lego sets with an interactive digital gameplay, this app lets you take creative play even further.
48.Minecraft Earth — Best selling game of all time also jumps on the augmented reality train. The new Minecraft Earth app was showcased at Apple’s WWDC 2019 to the delight of the fans worldwide.
49.Knightfall: AR — Defend your city in the world of The Knights Templar with this AR app that lets you physically move around the battlefield, zoom in on the action and launch attacks.
50.ARise — This puzzle game’s experience is focused on perspective. The users need to move around to align magical connections and create paths.
“…the most impressive game I saw, not least because it did something I’ve not quite seen in AR before.” — Forbes
Let me know in the comments if you have other cool examples of augmented reality apps! And if you enjoyed this article, share it and give it some claps! 👏
