According to Bobby Murphy, global chief technology officer (CTO) of Snapchat, the augmented reality (AR) developer ecosystem in India has expanded by over 50% over the last two years. Murphy added that the nation produced the most lenses posted on Snapchat while speaking at the second annual India AR Day in Mumbai. For those who are unaware, lenses are augmented reality experiences that show up within the Snapchat camera.
India is the country with the most lenses published on Snapchat out of all others. Additionally, within the past two years, the developer community has expanded by more than half. “India is a remarkable nation where AR has permeated everyday life,” Murphy added. The business claimed in a statement that over 3.75 lakh developers have created over 4 million AR lenses as part of its worldwide AR developer network.
Developers Pooling in from Metros as Well as Small Cities
According to Snapchat, the state capital and other Indian regions, including Goraya, Prayagraj, Cochin, and Ambala, are home to the company’s AR developers. According to Pulkit Trivedi, managing director (MD) of Snapchat India, the nation is home to over 200 million Snapchat users. “A vibrant community of developers and innovators in India is influencing the direction of augmented reality.
We think a robust developer ecosystem is essential to AR’s long-term success, and we’re still steadfastly dedicated to building this active community,” Trivedi continued. The social media giant further explained its focus on India by stating that it trained developers to create their first AR lenses by holding events like “Lens Studio meet-ups” in places like Surat, Coimbatore, Rajkot, Trichy, Trivandrum, and Gwalior. More than 6,000 AR developers reportedly attended the 120 “meetups” that Snapchat conducted in 2024.
Revealing the Spectacles AR glasses
Additionally, Snap showcased Spectacles, its fifth-generation see-through augmented reality spectacles, which were initially introduced in the US in September 2024. Snap OS, a brand-new operating system created just for the social media network to power its next AR products, powers these AR spectacles.
Without the need for controllers, the operating system’s natural interface puts the main menu in the palm of the user’s hand using their hands and voice. Currently, the company’s AR authoring software, Lens Studio, only allows developers to access it through the Spectacles Developer Program.
Additionally, Snap and OpenAI have teamed up to give developers access to multimodal big language models, which will make it simple for them to create lenses that can detect items in their environment and provide additional information. According to Jayashankar, they make heavy use of GenAI to assist non-developers or inexperienced developers in becoming Lens makers by merely prompting them to publish. Along with workshops and events, the firm also hosts Lensathons, which are hackathons in which developers collaborate with Snap specialists to create lenses or improve the Spectacles and expand the platform’s experiences.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Wintor.
The age of the internet has completely changed the way people used to live and the lifestyle they now lead. Technology has taken the human lifestyle to the next level and made many things possible for us to experience. One such image is to have a virtual tour of the dream place, which is far away from your eyes for a certain time.
Another thing to add to the same list is to have an augmented reality-based storytelling experience of the places you visit.
To enable that experience, Wintor has created an easy-to-use platform for experiencing Augmented Reality Tours. Check ahead to learn more about Wintor and its details, such as its startup story, industry, mission and vision, and other similar aspects.
Wintor was introduced to the world on 1 July 2021 by Jaap Gielink. It is a platform that allows a revolutionary method of creating tours with the help of AR. Wintor AR provides an easy method of combining the advantage of an in-person tour guide with a self-paced tour map.
It also enables the user to have a first-hand experience of the places without the need of having any coding knowledge. One can easily create their own tours and can also look at the work created by others.
Wintor allows the introduction of a place easy and interesting. It is a great tool to learn history. It can be of great help in museums, historical locations, corporation onboarding, and getting knowledge about new places.
Wintor – Industry
Augmented Reality is the computer-based information superimposed on the real imaginary world in real-time in order to get a better advantage from it. AR is widely used in the industries like e-commerce, retail, real estate, tourism, healthcare, education, etc.
Augmented Reality is nowhere near achieving its full market potential. As with the introduction of multiple wireless techniques and the presence of AR, the possibilities of its application are endless.
With the easy integration of mobile devices and home-based applications, the content experience can easily be enhanced. With the scope of AR, many new companies are looking forward to entering the market. Companies like Vuzix and Meta have partnered with other technology giants to improve their presence in the market.
In 2021, the global AR compound market was estimated at USD 25.33 billion as per the data shared by Grand View Research. The global market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 40.9% for the years 2022-2030.
The global AR market is divided into multiple application areas. The areas are Aerospace and defense, automotive, education, commerce and retail, gaming and entertainment, healthcare, industrial and manufacturing, and others. Amongst all, the manufacturing and industrial segment of AR is known to dominate other segments in revenue for the year 2021.
Wintor – Startup Story
Wintor – Team
Wintor was introduced to the world by Jaap Gielink. It is a no-code platform. The platform Wintor is made from the observation of platforms like Wix and WordPress. It was made for people to use without relying on the need for coding. Just the way Wix and WordPress allow their users to create a website without the need of going through the mess of coding.
Wintor is very much similar to those platforms with the change in its specification. Wintor is used for AR-based tours.
Before actually introducing Wintor to the world, it was created in stealth mode. Three months prior to its introduction to the world, the beta program was introduced to the people by the means of multiple platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
This activity allowed Wintor to get a few starting users from there who were also then included in the close relation of the companies decisions. At a later stage, those users were converted to a partner or respected clients of Wintor.
The overall process was quite challenging and this led to the postponement of the launch date to a longer time.
However, in end, the whole process is worth it. Now Wintor has successfully launched multiple public tours to discover cities and museums.
Wintor is introducing the future of travel: location-based storytelling using augmented reality (AR) tours. With its application, visitors can explore city centers, museums, or heritage sites and uncover hidden stories about the places they visit. Augmented reality makes history and information come to life.
And its app is more than just a fun and engaging way for tourists and visitors to explore: it’s also a valuable learning tool. Corporations use Wintor for gamification of the onboarding process using an onboarding AR tour.
Those at Wintor believe that AR will have a profound impact on the way we consume media. Therefore, they enable anyone without any technical background to create AR tours themselves using their app. Using drag and drop, one can pin media to the real world and create a story.
Their goal is to create a tightly knit group of diverse co-workers to complement each other’s capabilities. The hybrid team will be united by a single goal of making AR tours accessible to anyone.
Wintor – Products and Services
Wintor Website
Wintor AR Tours are the newest kid on the block among the AR development platforms. The company is inspired by Canva and Wix and is the simplest tool to use to create augmented reality (AR) tours without any technical knowledge.
An AR tour is like a guided tour, but one that visitors can do at their own pace and completely enriched with digital media at the location. It’s the best tool if you want to create a museum-, city-, or heritage tour.
It’s also a great tool for employee onboarding tours at your company in a gamified way. Wintor calls that location-based learning using AR.
Features offered by Wintor AR Tours:
An app for shopping mode iPhone and Android to easily create AR tours at the location using drag and drop
No need for markers or QR codes at location: Wintor AR Tours can recognize your environment based on the object or location using its own positioning system
A Web manager to upload and manage media such as 3D models, videos, virtual guides, and more from your PC
You can publish AR tours and make them visible for visitors easily
Wintor AR Tours can be used indoors and outdoor
Pricing of Wintor AR Tours
Wintor offers a 14-day free trial of their software. Their pricing is based on a creator account with an optional publishing bundle combined.
There are 3 creator accounts: play, essential and professional, which costs 7, 49, and 299 euros respectively. A publishing bundle is needed if you want to offer your tour to more visitors and publish it on the discover page of the app.
There are 3 publishing bundles, that start at 250 euros a month for 5.000 AR spot visits/month, 500 euros a month for 15.000 AR spot visits/month, and 1250 euros a month for 50.000 AR spot visits/month.
Wintor is a revolutionary platform introduced in the market of augmented reality. It is more than just a tour guide for interested people. With Wintor, one can easily impose information from the real world onto computer-based data in real time.
The platform comes with a free 14-day trial and a premium plan. The idea to start the platform came from platforms like Wix and WordPress. It simplifies the process of creating a tour at your own pace.
FAQs
Who is the CEO of Wintor?
Jaap Gielink is the CEO of Wintor.
When was Wintor founded?
Wintor was founded on July 1st, 2021.
What does Wintor do?
Wintor is a platform that allows a revolutionary method of creating tours with the help of AR.
Nitin Konde
