It’s a big news day in the augmented reality department, with Urbanspoon just launching its iPhone AR feature earlier and now this. Seminal AR app Layar has been available for Google’s Android platform, and today sees its free launch for the iPhone.

You choose a filter or “layer” to overlay on top of your real-world view — Wikipedia (

) entries, bars and nightlife nearby, Twitter (

) users nearby, etc. — and point the camera at your surroundings. You’ll get a visual overlay of relevant results close to you, determined by a range filter you can adjust in your settings.

Part of what makes Layar one of the most interesting augmented reality apps to date is its breadth: it’s not just a one trick pony. New types of layers featuring different types of data are launching all the time thanks to a strong third-party developer platform. The app helps you find and filter the best by collecting featured and popular apps together in their own tabs, as well as providing a search mechanism to find new layers.

Another popular AR app, Wikitude, is taking a crowdsourced approach to gathering its data points. It will be interesting to see which approach fares better in the realm of augmented reality apps: the Apple-style third-party developer community or the Wikipedia-style wisdom of the crowds strategy.

Have you had a chance to use Layar yet, either on Android (

) or the iPhone? What layers have you found to be the most interesting or useful?

[via Gizmodo]

Very nice implementation of augmented reality. I can’t wait until I go to New York in November to really put apps like this to the test. It’s just no the same here in Cincinnati.