When it comes to curation of up-to-date news and information in real life, Twitter is one of the best social media platforms to turn to…so why not bring that into VR?
TweetReality is the first augmented reality app that breaks the Twitter feed out of its strictly 2D frame, bringing instead a futuristic Minority Report style interface that looks like you’ve dissected your feed into blocks and then laid them out in front of you in an interactive grid.
The app, which was created by Oscar Falmer, a Senior at Universite’ of Eastern Paris Marne-La-Vallee and a self-taught coder, has built up a great deal of global steam with over 10,000 downloads in over 17 countries since it debuted on the Apple App store on December 5.
“I really like Twitter and think it’s great information-based media,” Falmer said in an interview with VRScout. “But when Apple released ARKit, I saw the potential of using augmented reality as a way to integrate Twitter into our daily lives.”
I tried TweetReality on both my iPhone and an iPad Pro, and did find that the app excels visually on the larger screen of an iPad Pro. Yes, you can do everything that you normally can do through a traditional Twitter client—compose tweets, retweet, reply, see notifications and even search—but it really didn’t change my experience with Twitter.
It doesn’t mean that TweetReality isn’t a great app. I actually think it’s a very good app—but probably best served through tablets than smartphones given screen sizes.
Falmer will be the first to admit that TweetReality isn’t perfect and that Twitter is still better through the traditional feed that you would experience on your smart device or desktop computer. He’s hopeful for the next phase of AR.
“TweetReality is really just a proof of concept for AR glasses and it still has a lot of room for improvement,” Falmer said. “When AR glasses arrive at some point—I can see TweetReality playing a much bigger role with that experience.”
Falmer sees his app being the future of how information could be displayed through AR glasses. He explained that he just wants to inspire and spark innovation of virtual environments.
“I want everything to become transparent, be more virtual,” Falmer said. “I want people to have crazy ideas.”
TweetReality is available now on the Apple App store for all Apple devices with iOS11.0 or later, and compatible with iPhones 6s and higher.
