# Augmented Reality in Heritage Apps:Current Trends in Europe
## 6 Conclusions  
We can conclude that today, there are very few heritage apps which have met the inclusion criteria laid out in this study. This small sample size precludes a truly exhaustive study of heritage apps using AR. Nevertheless, we have been able to paint a general picture in broad brush strokes through the study of the sample. Though this group is limited, it has nevertheless generated some important data that ought to be further studied. As mentioned in the previous section of this paper, the use of AR in apps has an incredible potential to provide new ways of seeing and understanding heritage, even if at present we have detected a general lack of educationally sophisticated design. Having completed the first Europe-wide study of open-access apps with heritage content, we can now outline the common characteristics and features of apps that use AR and provide a snapshot of the current trends in Europe:  
1. The main entities developing these apps are museums and other heritage presentation sites (V1). 2. They have mainly been developed in Spain, the United Kingdom, and Italy, in 2015 and 2018 (V2, V3, V4), although the majority of apps become outdated over time. 3. They are not fully adapted to multiplatform systems (V5). 4. They can be used during both indoor and outdoor visits (V6). 5. They cannot be adjusted to meet various levels of user knowledge (V7). 6. They largely focus on heritage from Antiquity (V8). 7. Historical heritage is the main focus, which is treated from a temporal, monumental perspective (V9, V10). 8. The tone and type of communication is almost exclusively academic (V11). 9. AR is used for the reconstruction of spaces and monuments. It is also often used to view heritage objects or items (V12). 10. Apps are activated by scanning codes, and to a lesser extent, by activating GPS. A large percentage of apps require users to be in situ (V13, V14). 11. AR is usually the only or at least principal use of the app; if not, it usually features very prominently in the application (V15). The developed apps have also been identified as being targeted at tourists or occasional visitors. Hardly any apps are available that can be used in the classroom. Lastly, this is an exploratory study framed in a very specific and limited geographical (Europe) and temporal (2019) context, and so we must be aware of any resulting research limitations. For example, the fact that the analyzed apps had to be available in the app stores at the time that we carried out our research limited and considerably reduced the sample size. Digital technologies always run into the same issue, namely, their shelf life: since apps have a short lifespan and are often linked to very specific projects that render them unsustainable [4], the speed at which these technologies are developed is faster than the speed of research and the publication process. If the results of user experiences are not published, then it becomes very difficult for apps contributions to be included in any future research. In this case, apps that did not work or were not available in app stores were discarded, which means that the oldest appshave not been taken into account. The non-existence of studies on these apps, and even more so, of any evaluation of their uses in the area of heritage education, prevents any comprehensive comparison including older digital applications. Another additional limitation has been the search languages. Had the number of languages included in the search been higher, the sample would probably have also been larger. This means that a more comprehensive search needs to be undertaken in more languages, an undertaking that would require a European project with participants from a variety of countries where searches can be carried out in other EU languages. To conclude, we think that the educational opportunities for heritage learning and teaching that both AR and mobile devices provide deserve further research and scholarly attention.