A New Hologram App Takes the Guesswork Out of Interior Design

Would some Fyrkantigs look good in your living room? How about a Knutstorp?

Your smartphone may soon have a high-tech answer to your Swedish furnishing conundrum.

Home furnishing giant IKEA is working with Apple on an augmented reality-based shopping app, allowing users to virtually furnish their home before a purchase. The app is expected to launch later this year.

It’s not the first time an app has virtually dressed up your home: the recently launched Hutch acts in a similar way. But it does point to a promising future for AR that steps beyond Pokémon Go (reminder: augmented reality superimposes computer-generated images over a real world view). As the tech publication DiGital notes, Apple sees the IKEA collab as a way for AR to become accepted outside of the gaming world.

To that end, Apple recently released ARKit, an augmented reality platform for iOS developers that could herald a new Cupertino take on Google Glass. And Tim Cook himself said earlier this year that AR is a “core technology” for the company going forward (Facebook is also creating a platform for AR).

As long as it can help us set up our Dombas and Gronkullas, we’re all in.

Meet your guide

Kirk Miller

Kirk Miller is InsideHook’s Senior Lifestyle Editor (and longest-serving resident). He writes a lot about whisk(e)y, cocktails, consumer goods and artificial intelligence.