Compass Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

The Inteliscope connects your iPhone to an actual firearm

by Mike Schramm (May 14th, 2013)

We've talked before about how the iPhone can do a lot of things for you, but can it serve as a scope on a tactical rifle? That's the idea behind the Inteliscope, a new accessory that connects your iPhone to an actual tactical firearm. You just clip your iPhone 5 (or 4S or iPod touch) to the ...

Patent suggests augmented reality coming to Maps and Compass apps

by Chris Rawson (Aug 19th, 2011)

According to Patently Apple, a new patent application from Apple suggests the company is interested in baking augmented reality functions into the iPhone's built-in Maps and Compass apps. In one implementation suggested by the patent, users could take a picture of their surroundings and perform ...

TUAW's Daily App: Unearthed

by Mike Schramm (Sep 16th, 2010)

Honestly, I spent all day yesterday playing Pocket Frogs, so go try that if you haven't yet. But since we covered that one earlier this week, I'll tell you about Unearthed. To be honest, I don't exactly know how it all works. The app is complicated, and getting it to do what you want it to do is ...

Pocket Universe updated with iPhone 4 gyro support

by Mel Martin (Aug 1st, 2010)

Pocket Universe has always been one of the best of the astronomy apps, and I reviewed the earlier version positively. I like the use of augmented reality to overlay a star chart on the real sky, and there are lots of features like astronomy news, a planning module for any particular night, and quick ...

TUAW review and giveaway: Twelve South Compass iPad stand

by Steven Sande (Jul 22nd, 2010)

Yesterday we heard of a new iPad stand from Twelve South, and our initial reaction was a yawn -- everybody and their brother has come out with an iPad stand, and most of them are clunky, ugly, or weigh as much as the iPad. Upon further reading of the press release, we decided differently, and ...

iCub puts an iPad in a plane

by Victor Agreda, Jr. (Jul 1st, 2010)

Even though the first iPhone lacked a GPS and compass (not to mention a true gyroscope), there were a few early avionic entries to the App Store, mostly involving crude tilt measurements. When the iPhone got a GPS and then a compass, it became a wee more useful to the flying sort. The iPad brings ...

Voices that Matter iPhone: How Ben Newhouse created Yelp Monocle, and the future of AR

by Mike Schramm (Apr 26th, 2010)

Yelp's Ben Newhouse (who is actually still a student at Stanford) gave a fascinating talk this weekend at the Seattle Voices that Matter iPhone conference. He talked about Yelp Monocle, the augmented reality (AR) iPhone app that he created, and revealed the surprising (and somewhat scandalous) ...

Distant Suns for iPhone update: Sky no longer the limit

by Mel Martin (Aug 6th, 2009)

In this International Year of Astronomy we're seeing a small explosion of astronomy apps updated both for the Mac and the iPhone. One of my favorites, Distant Suns [App Store] has updated the build that runs on the 3GS iPhone to include some augmented reality features. This means that if you ...

More AR, this time with Twitter, on the iPhone

by Mike Schramm (Jul 9th, 2009)

Here's another augmented reality iPhone app that might be slightly more useful for those of us outside of London than the Nearest Tube app we showed off the other day. TwittARound is a Twitter client (currently in beta) for the iPhone that uses your location info, compass, and the 3GS' video camera ...

Nearest Tube's augmented reality on the iPhone 3GS

by Mike Schramm (Jul 7th, 2009)

This (extremely loud, be careful) video has been making the rounds lately -- it's a demo of a new app called Nearest Tube that isn't quite in the App Store yet, but uses both your location information along with the iPhone's compass and video camera to show you an augmented reality picture of where ...

Latest iPhone TV ad highlights video editing

by Michael Rose (Jul 3rd, 2009)

If there's one thing Apple wants you to know about the iPhone 3GS, it's that this is the device to get for mobile video. Witness the latest TV ad for the new phone, "Skateboard": it could hardly look easier to shoot, trim and email your clips from the neigborhood skate park. The ad is airing now, ...

Inside iPhone 3G S: Seeing your direction on iPhone 3G S maps

by Mel Martin (Jun 19th, 2009)

One of the highly touted features of the new iPhone is the ability to have the map display your direction of travel. A great idea, long overdue. As people were walking out of the Apple Store today it was one of the first things some people wanted to try. They brought up the Google Map app, and then ...

Layar app for Android presages the augmented world of iPhone 3G S

by Michael Rose (Jun 16th, 2009)

If you caught the Copper Robot show on Sunday or any of our recent talkcasts, you may have heard me yammering at length about the possibilities for using the iPhone 3G S in enhanced or augmented reality applications. After the dynamic demo of compass-enhanced Google Street View on the Android ...