Ikea’s Augmented Reality App Does Not Allow Users to Consume Digital Meatballs So It Is a Failure

Nor can it assemble your furniture for you.

Do you believe in magic? (Screengrab: YouTube)
Do you believe in magic? (Screengrab: YouTube)

IKEA has a new app that will surely please the hastily assembled furniture giant’s fans, save for one detail — it does not come with Swedish meatballs.

Sign Up For Our Daily Newsletter

By clicking submit, you agree to our <a href="http://observermedia.com/terms">terms of service</a> and acknowledge we may use your information to send you emails, product samples, and promotions on this website and other properties. You can opt out anytime.

See all of our newsletters

The app allows customers to use their smartphones to picture what a nice DAGSTORP or perhaps a solid MAGNARP would look like in their very own living rooms.

Users must simply toss the Ikea catalog onto the ground where the furniture might go, and then peer through their smartphone’s camera. An image of the room with the furniture in it will appear. Watch this family use the app to all hang out in one room for the first time in years:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwt-mgxq_ao&w=560&h=315]

It seems like a great way to get people to keep using Ikea catalogs when they could just go on the damn website to look at stuff, as the app doesn’t work without the dead-tree pamphlet standing in for the merchandise.

The prospect of virtually plunking a sofa down in the living room just for funsies is pretty exciting until you remember you have to move and assemble the thing yourself. Guess that’s why they have to tempt shoppers with cool apps, lingonberries and the best meatballs in the furniture food court game.

[H/T Engadget]

Ikea’s Augmented Reality App Does Not Allow Users to Consume Digital Meatballs So It Is a Failure