* Google -- interior navigation
* Facebook -- face recognition, posts
* Apple -- style and cool factor
That said, the obnoxious complaining attitude of the article reeeally grates on my ears. Lots of companies are trying very hard -- on their own dime -- to make this happen, knowing that most of them will almost certainly fail, and this guy wants to whine about it? What an ass.
Technology clunks until it doesn't. That's just how progress works. The same article could have been written about any of the last big technologies before they were mature: personal computers, the internet, smart phones, social networks. Nobody knows if or when AR will click, and the only thing to do is keep trying.
Also, he could have done without making it a race thing.