Yelp’s pioneering augmented reality app perseveres while waiting for its close-up
When Ben Newhouse was a 20-year-old intern working at Yelp in 2009, technology evangelist Robert Scoble tweeted about a mysterious app that Yelp was developing, one that would use the compass in the then-new iPhone 3G from Apple.
There was just one problem. The app didn’t exist, wasn’t on the drawing board and no one at Yelp, which allows customers to review businesses, knew what Scoble was talking about.
But Newhouse, who’d been at Yelp for only a few weeks, was intrigued. He’d already been playing with the idea of mixing data and location, overlaying information onto Google Maps. Newhouse decided he’d try to bring the app to life.
A 2010 Engadget article described what happened next as “an overnight Red Bull bender,” with Newhouse coding the foundation that would become Yelp Monocle. It’s now considered the father of all other apps that use what’s called augmented reality — overlaying digital information atop a view of the real world.
Newhouse talked about Monocle’s development at a 2010 conference, and you can see his slide
deck from the presentation below.
Augmented reality, or AR, has turned into a hot topic in tech. Bloomberg recently reported Apple is sinking big bucks into developing an AR headset, and Microsoft already has put its HoloLens product in developers’ hands.
Even Visit Houston, the city’s tourism bureau, has gotten in the act with Visit Houston AR, an app that looks a lot like Monocle, but apparently gets its inspiration from Pokemon Go (which probably got its inspiration from Monocle).
Meanwhile, Monocle still exists, but you wouldn’t know it from a casual exploration of Yelp’s mobile app for iOS or Android.
To find Monocle, you have to go into the app’s main menu, then scroll down to the “More” section near the bottom.
When you tap on Monocle, it shows a view through your smartphone’s camera. Cards appear showing information pulled from Yelp’s database about businesses — restaurants, hotel, points of interest and more. Tapping on one of the cards launches the Yelp entry for that business.
It’s particularly helpful if you are in an urban environment that’s bristling with possibilities. Monocle tells you so much more than a storefront or business sign can.
And yet, it doesn’t get much use. That’s according to Yelp product manager Matt Geddie.
“We have found it is not really useful in day-to-day life,” Geddie said. “It’s a fun part of our app, but we develop and put resources into what’s most useful.”
He said that requiring Yelp’s app users to raise and point their smartphones to survey what’s around them is cumbersome. What would really make AR useful, he said, would be glasses that included a heads-up display.
“Once AR shifts to everyday use, when it becomes more widespread and when everyone has these glasses, then it will be useful,” Geddie said.
Monocle’s creator, Newhouse, who now works at the cloud storage service Dropbox, said Yelp would know whether Monocle is getting used. However, the fact that it’s buried deep in a menu likely doesn’t help.
“That said, it was originally designed as a curiosity and I was really surprised when I saw people (read: strangers) using it in the real world,” Newhouse wrote in an email, adding that Monocle’s real value is in navigation.
Newhouse said so much more could be done now with Monocle, which he added doesn’t seemed to have gotten any development since he first wrote it.
But current fans of Monocle needn’t worry. Geddie said there are no plans at Yelp to remove it. Just don’t expect it to get any love from Yelp’s current crop of coders, either.