AR Flashcards was created in 2012 by Heath Mitchell and David Callahan. We are two dads from St. Louis, Missouri, whom in 2011 got together and discussed how we were teaching our then 4 year old boys the alphabet. We talked about how we were trying to use the traditional flash card to teach them and how they were uninterested and bored with them. Dave brought up the idea of, what if we created flash cards that would come to life using augmented reality. I loved the idea! Dave got with Jesiey Mead, who made our wonderful animals and Denny Smith made our awesome flash cards. We were the first augmented reality flash card app on the AppStore in those days.

Original 2012 Release Launch Screen

We released AR Flashcards Animal Alphabet in Feb 2012 for $1.99. It did not sell well. We sold a couple hundred copies. In 2013 we decided to redesign the app and make it free. We wanted to get the app in as many hands as possible. Jesiey made 6 animated dinosaurs and Denny created new artwork for the launch screen. Version 2.0 came out in April of 2013. We got an immediate bump of downloads from sites that reported the price drop to free. Then we started to see things happen. We started seeing people on Twitter talk about AR Flashcards. We saw educators sharing our app at events and conferences. By the end of 2013 we had 11K downloads. This was a huge win for us and bolstered our spirits! Due to this success we decided to work on our second app, AR Flashcards Space and was released in late 2013.

2013 Redesign

AR Flashcards Space was a paid app that covered our solar system. We followed that up with AR Flashcards Shapes & Colors in 2014, Addition in 2016 and Abraham Lincoln in 2018. Abraham Lincoln and the birthplace cabin were modeled and animated by Jared Mitchell. In 2017, the AR Flashcards brand hit 1 million downloads.

In 2019, we spent 7 months revamping as a brand and an app. We relaunched AR Flashcards in June. We combined all of our apps into one easier to use and redesigned app. AR Flashcards is now 1 app, and we added awesome things like ground plane. Life sized animals that you can place on the floor and pose with. No longer, do you need a printed flash card. We also launched our create mode, where you can create your own flash card.

With the relaunch we decided that a subscription service was the best way forward. We have a ton of free content but we wanted to have exclusive content for our members. We have never been able to figure out how to monetize AR Flashcards in a way that would allow us to do this full time. The time is now. We built this app with subs in mind because we hope that you will join us in becoming a member and helping support the future of AR Flashcards. If we can get to a point where we are working full time on AR Flashcards, then there is no limit to what we can do. The price is $3.99 a month and you can try your first month free. We hope you join us on our journey and help us build the future. You can check out our road map which is completely based on membership goals here.

Our first membership goal was hit in September and we are releasing our first update from our road map, November 13.  Thank you so much to all that have downloaded and especially our members!

Heath Mitchell
Co-founder
Peak Reality, LLC