Esquire Launches Augmented Reality Edition

The latest edition of Esquire magazine, with augmented reality enabled cover and inner pages has hit the newsstands, and is already producing blog responses and causing much discussion online.  No doubt there will be those of you who have read the response to it from Engadget: Esquire’s Augmented Reality issue goes on sale, and we have video to prove it.

With it’s superb multimedia content and design execution there is no doubt it has WOW factor, but beyond this does it really augment and enhance our reality?  Is it really worth the time to rush down to the newsagent, spend your hard earned cash on Esquire, dash back to your workstation and hold your copy up to your webcam?  I think not.

From a creative perspective they definitely win hands down, but in the last year or more, AR, along with the iPhone has moved on in leaps and bounds. The time and energy spent on creating such a spiffy AR setup ‘in magazine’ might have been just as well spent putting energy into an iPhone or mobile app.  Surely every suited and well turned out gentleman who reads the magazine has an iPhone.

That’s not to say that AR has had its day.  For those of us for whom augmented reality is no longer a new and amazing gimmick the edition will fall flat, though no doubt there will be those giving plaudits.  In the promo video for the AR edition David Granger, Editor-in-Chief of Esquire talks about how the app is time sensitive.   This adds an interesting angle, but it doesn’t add value.  It would have been even more interesting external knowledge of time, location etc could have been harnessed, along with network access to bring real value to Esquire readers.  I think next time they need to tap into AR + Web 2.0 and give more of an app like experience with beneficial features to their readership, the kind of thing readers are used to in iPhone AR apps.

There is no doubt AR is continuing to make a real splash, and this is proof it is hitting mainstream.  The public at large are really taking to it and are of course increasingly comfortable with it.  There is mileage in AR and it can be used in more than just commercial fields.  The cultural sectors seems to be picking up on and taking advantage of it too, which is great, and if nothing else the AR version of Esquire will drive us all on to produce better content for our very own AR-enabled content.

Anyhow, it’s nice work from the team at Esquire and Robert Down Jr is definitely brought to life!