Technology plays a vital role in changing the way how you look at the world. In this regard, Augmented Reality or AR and Virtual Reality or VR are two of the most important things that have come up as a result of technological advancement. Both of these are the major contributors to change our way of looking at the world.

Now, Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality appear to be quite similar which the exact reason why a huge percentage of the population is confused. Being similar to both AR as well as VR are considered the same by many. These two terms are being increasingly used in technology and therefore it becomes quite important to know about the differences between the two.

Augmented Reality or AR

Augmented reality or AR is basically a much-enhanced version of reality that is created by making use of the technology for the purpose of adding digital information on an image of any particular thing.

Augmented reality or AR is used in the applications for smartphones as well as tablets. Thus, it can be quite clearly understood that Augmented reality or AR plays a vital role in mobile app development. The Augmented reality applications necessarily make use the camera of the phone for the purpose of showing a view of the real world in front and then put a layer of information which includes text, images or over the top of that view.

The mobile applications can make the use of Augmented reality or AR for adding a lot of fun, excitement and thrill to the games. The gaming apps make the best use of this Augmented reality or AR to design the game in such a way that it becomes more interesting for the players. An example in this regard can be the use of AR in the game ‘Pokémon GO’.

On the other hand, mobile applications can also use Augmented Reality for information as well like in the case of the Layar application. The application named 'Layar' can show the user’s very interesting information about places they visit by making use of augmented reality. The users simply need to open the 'Layar' app when they are visiting any place or site and easily read the information that happens to appear in a layer over the view of the users. The 'Layar' application is available for free for the users of Android phones on Google Play and the users of iPhone as well as iPad on the iTunes App Store.

Thus, it can be clearly understood as to how beneficial is Augmented reality or AR for mobile app development making things more interesting as well as informative for the users thereby providing them with great experiences.

Augmented reality or AR can also be used seeing real estate for sale, finding money machines, finding restaurants and a lot of others as well. Augmented Reality might even help the users in discovering new sites or places of which they did not know about their existence.

Virtual Reality or VR

Virtual Reality or VR is actually the use of computer technology for the purpose of the creation of an environment that is simulated. At the point of time, when any of the users are viewing Virtual Reality or VR, they are viewing a completely different reality than the one that exists in front of them.

Virtual reality or VR might be artificial, like simply an animated scene, or an actual place that has been photographed and the included in a virtual reality application. With the use of virtual reality, the users can move simply around as well as look in any direction they feel like to, such as up, down, behind and sideways in a way such that the user was physically present there.

The users can also view Virtual Reality or VR with the help of a special VR viewer, like the Oculus Rift. Other virtual reality viewers might use their own phone and other Virtual Reality applications, like Daydream View, Google Cardboard and many more. Mobile app development for the development of applications that work with Virtual Reality or VR necessarily helps in providing a great experience to the users.

With the help of Virtual Reality or VR applications, it becomes very easy and convenient to explore a greater number of places to which the users have never ever been like the surface of Mars, deep under the oceans, the top of Mount Everest and a lot of others. A very commonly used mobile application that is the 'Google Earth' is an example of a Virtual Reality application.