“Augmented reality” is such an important feature for an Android device that it must be preloaded on all devices, LG Electronics believes. The upcoming Android-powered LG-LU2300 model will come with an augmented reality service, as a standard feature, in the South Korean market.
Augmented reality is the superimposing of additional data on any image viewed through a mobile device camera. That could be information about historic places, building names, retail locations or any other information people will, over time, come to associate with physical locations and objects.
Mobile marketing proponents of course see ways to use the technology to bolster and create new mobile advertising, signage or other applications with commercial value. As one example, it might be possible to digitally replace the text and images on a billboard viewed through a camera lens.
That could mean inserting a customized or personalized message into the physical space “actually” occupied by a different message. Though opt-in and annoyance factors must be kept in mind, AR offers a way to digitally replicate “chalk on sidewalk” messages or “projected image on side of building” messages with a custom or personalized message seen only through the camera lens.
Conventional wisdom in the mobile handset business has been that people do not like downloading applications. Apple’s App Store might be revising that thinkiing. But not completely.
LG Electronics still does not believe most users, even in “mobile forward” South Korea, that most of its potential buyers enjoy downloading. And there are some applications or features the firm thinks are compelling enough that they must be preloaded on all of LG’s devices. Augmented reality is one of them.
“In the past, smartphone users had to download and install all application programs in their new phones,” says Na Joo-young, a spokeswoman for LG. “To address concerns from first-time smartphone users who wanted an easy access to numerous applications, we decided to preload the best applications in our phones.”
The model is scheduled to be released in the second quarter.
