Coming off a tour around Europe discussing “The Future Of Design” with Adobe customers and sharing some of the work we’re doing, the topic of Augmented Reality came up quite a bit. I think AR is often (and unfairly) lumped together with virtual reality or is cast aside as something solely dependent on future hardware that doesn’t yet exist. Instead, I like to think about AR in the context of our every day life.
What the web does for us now, I believe Augmented Reality will do in the future, but in the context of our physical world rather than a screen. From how you navigate a new city or review the menu in restaurants to dating and how you get help fixing appliances in your home, AR will enrich experiences in ways we can barely imagine. However, none of this is possible without designers creating compelling three-dimensional interactive content and being able to collaborate with developers across platforms. At Apple’s recent Worldwide Developers Conference, my team debuted Project Aero, a new tool for creating Augmented Reality experiences. Through our collaboration with Apple, Pixar and other partners, Project Aero will give creative professionals the ability to create compelling AR experiences with tools like Photoshop and Adobe Dimension that they already use every day.
The prospects of AR will be either restrained or catapulted forward by the creative content within the medium. It’s early days, but I am optimistic.