We were surprised yesterday to learn that TripWolf is claiming to be the “first iPhone travel guide with integrated Augmented Reality“. Surprised, because TripWolf’s claims are simply not supported by the facts. For example, Discover Anywhere Mobile has been shipping Augmented Reality in all its products since September of 2009. Here’s a select sample of our apps, all which include POI databases, events calendars, itinerary planning, search, integrating mapping and much much more.

• Finger Lakes Wine Country (released March 9, 2010)
• Ocean City, MD (released February 17, 2010)
• Central Nova Scotia (AR release Feb 16, 1010)
• Destination St. John’s (released Nov 17, 2009)

All these apps are actually available in the app store right now; many more are in the pipeline. In addition, many other app makers in the Travel sector offer Augmented Reality (and the dates given here are for their latest releases, earlier versions no doubt had these features too) :

• Wikitude (Feb 11, 2010)
• Canada Eye (March 3, 2010)
• Metro Paris Subway (Feb 1, 2010)
• Bionic Eye (Feb 5, 2010)

One application that may reasonable lay claim to being first into the AR travel market is Yelp, who cleverly snuck an Easter egg into their application before Apple officially allowed AR to be supported in August of 2009. There are also a number of Asian travel apps which offer integrated Augmented Reality.

We’re happy for TripWolf that they’ll soon be offering a feature that was available from the rest of the market 6 months ago (FYI: it takes Apple less than three days to approve an app these days). We look forward to their announcement, perhaps someday, of them being the first to offer comprehensive social media integration into their products.