I have been warmongering last week, with a couple of posts that mainly target Mobilizy of Wikitude fame (“Battle of the AR Browsers” and “Updates from the Front Line“). Mark A.M. Kramer of Mobilizy left the following response to my last post:
Dear Rouli,
Thank you for the round-up of what has happened in the AR world this week. A lot has happened as you are well aware.
First of all, we at Mobilizy do not see ourselves in an AR war. We are just tired of all the attention given to SPRXMobile and Layar when we are well aware that most users of Layar are only in the Netherlands and the whole world is giving its attention to Layar as if it was the first AR application/browser in the world. WIkitude is global and we have over 130,000+ users around the world.
Also, we have worked with SPRXMobile in the past and they are well aware of the outcomes of that working relationship. We are coders, developers, AR techies. WE love crafting software that is useful and makes people happy. One of the many strengths of SPRXMobile and Layar is marketing. In reality, we would make an amazing strategic alliance together with our combined strengths.
With regards to Acrossair: We have respect for their new application even if we did say we thought the demonstration was a mock-up. It still is hard to tell really. We do know that the camera api is not officially open for development on the iPhone from other applications (we are developing onthe iPhone too!) This means that Acrossair is using a hack to accomplish what they have done. Hopefully Apple will change its mind and open the api up for develoment.
This is what we wrote about Acrossair:
@Kjeld @oheckmann The people at acrossair made a wonderful MOCK- Video: http://bit.ly/Vd37Y you can tell it is fake if you look closely.This is a mock-up of our iPhone prototyping. We have the compass and GPS functioning, no camera API yet! http://twitpic.com/9o7or
We are excited that the field of mobile AR is taking off! We are happy to work with anyone and everyone to advance this nascent field.
Cheers,
Mark of Mobilizy / WIkitude
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Mobilizy, Wikitude |
Games Alfresco 
A nice response, and I understand their viewpoint totaly.
All company’s working in this field should be praised, but I understand them feeling a bit down about others getting attention, when they have something out already and fully working.
I dont see it as a ar-war either, but untill theres methods to use multiple app’s overlaying stuff at the same time, people will be using one, or the other, or (at best) switching between the two.
This blog is very interesting, but I’d like it even more if you skipped the gossip about the developers. This field is still pretty new, and there’s plenty of room for everyone. Your “warmongering” is tawdry and doesn’t add to the conversation.