Apple AR: MakeSpace's iPhone App Takes the Soul-Crushing Boredom Out of Storage Planning

In many ways, the latest version of the MakeSpace iPhone app, now updated with ARKit, makes it the bizarro world IKEA Place; instead of measuring your living space for new furniture, it measures your furniture so you can move it into storage.

Using ARKit (or any other AR platform, for that matter) to measure objects is not groundbreaking. However, it's the implementation of the functionality within an existing process that makes this app unique.

MakeSpace is a service that takes the self out of self-storage. First, customers select their space sizes, which range from hall closet to a one-bedroom apartment, with the online storage calculator. Then, MakeSpace dispatches a team to pick up the belongings to be squirreled away. Lastly, customers can manage their storage inventory through the app or a web portal, request items for retrieval and delivery when they are needed, and even track the delivery truck's journey in real time.

The ARKit update to the iPhone app makes this process even simpler. Users start by measuring the dimensions of the first item they want to store. As they proceed to the next item, ARKit's world-tracking ability holds the measurements in place. Once all items are measured, the app estimates the space needed.

I tried the app out, and it works as easily as advertised. Measurements were accurate enough in that the intent is to estimate space needed. The existing measurements anchored solidly.

Unfortunately, this saintly service is only available in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC, for the moment. In the meantime, if you live elsewhere, you can trudge through your overstuffed garage with this app and imagine how easy it could be to send it all to storage. Or you could just give it away to Goodwill.