compass posts

Filed under: iPhone, App Store, iPod touch, App Review

Distant Suns for iPhone update: Sky no longer the limit

by Mel Martin (RSS feed) on 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 point the phone up to the sky, the program figures out the direction you are pointing and your elevation and slews to the proper view of the star map, giving you a view that should match what you are seeing in the sky.

This greatly enhances the usefulness of this program, especially for novices who want to get outside under the summer stars and quickly figure out 'what's up?'.

This new version is only for 3GS iPhones, and an update with some additional features for all the earlier models is on the way. Of course older phones won't have the compass feature. Other changes include some UI tweaks, and setting the sound effects default to 'off.'

Pocket Universe [App Store], which I reviewed last month, has a similar feature and also works very well. Pocket Universe sells for US$2.99 and Distant Suns is $5.99. Check reader reactions to both and go into details on the features to decide which one is right for you.

Distant Suns has a long pedigree in the star mapping world. It first ran on the Commodore Amiga in 1987, then was ported to the PC, the Mac, and now your favorite cell phone.

When you look up at the moon this summer to celebrate the Apollo 11 landing 40 years ago, be sure to investigate the thousands of other points of light with a software app that will literally point you in the right direction.

Note: Distant Suns runs on the iPod touch as well, but the software will not have the augmentation/orientation feature because the magnetometer isn't present in the iPod touch hardware.

Tags: astronomy, augmented reality, compass, Distant Suns, iPhone, iPod touch, star maps

Filed under: Hardware, Software, Odds and ends, iPhone, App Store, SDK

More AR, this time with Twitter, on the iPhone

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on 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 to place tweets close to your location in a realtime video view, so that the effect you get is like pop-up notes on the landscape. Very cool indeed. Unfortunately, it seems many of these AR (augmented reality) apps may never see the light of day, as some developers are saying Apple doesn't provide any public API calls for the live video (hence this petition from the burgeoning AR community).

There are other issues here too, though, even if Apple does open up all of the APIs needed for a project like this. Twitter doesn't actually include location information with each tweet, so what you're actually seeing (I'd imagine) is the location of each Twitterer. What you'd like to do with an app like this is walk around and use it to get information about what you see (look through the app at a line outside a concert hall, for instance, and see people talking about who's playing inside). But unfortunately, unless they have some way of seeing exactly where those tweets come from, they'll all still be from each Twitterer's location, not where the tweet was actually sent.

But maybe Twitter or some other app can start including that location (Brightkite is already location-based, and works with Twitter), and then we can get real-time information from where we actually are on an AR screen like this. There's still a few obstacles, but once those are evened out, the possibilities are very exciting.

Tags: augmented-reality, brightkite, compass, information, iphone, iphone-3gs, location, twitter, video

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, Video, Developer, iPhone, App Store

Nearest Tube's augmented reality on the iPhone 3GS

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on 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 and in which directions around you the nearest London Tube station is. Very cool use of the technology, and while I'm not actually in London to use it (and I don't have a 3GS -- obviously the compass is required to make this all work), it looks like it works pretty well. Some of you folks in London will have to give it a try when it gets approved and tell us what you think.

Oh, and the whole augmented reality thing -- get ready to hear that term a lot. On the TUAW team list, we were just chatting about microprojectors as well (rumored to be coming to iPhones and iPod touches), and as all of these technologies (video, projectors, compasses and location information) all start to get combined and hooked up to some serious computing power, your phone will be able to tell you more and more about what it sees in the world around you, from Tube or road directions like this app, to restaurants and stores, stars in the sky, and even other iPhones and their users. Hold on to your hats, because more and more, developers won't need to simulate the world around you when they can just show you an augmented version of it through your iPhone's screen.

Tags: augmented-reality, compass, computing-power, future, graphics, iphone, london-tube, microprojectors, nearest-tube, power, technology, video

Filed under: iPhone

Latest iPhone TV ad highlights video editing

by Michael Rose (RSS feed) on 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, and continues the feature-focused ad series for the 3GS that started with Copy & Paste and Voice Control. It's a shame they can't do ads for Tethering & MMS, or Cooking An Egg.

Side note: does it seem weird to anyone else that the "Itchy" ad features a compass app (Tommy Westerberg's Compass Go) that came out prior to the release of the 3GS?

Thanks Chris F.

Tags: ads, compass, iphone, skateboard, tv, video

Filed under: Cool tools, How-tos, Tips and tricks, iPhone

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

by Mel Martin (RSS feed) on 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 started spinning around. But these whirling dervishes weren't getting anywhere.

Since I was the real smart TUAW dude, I told them I could get it going. Nope. Nada. Zero.

After a bit of a search at the Apple web site when I returned home, I found it. You have one more tap to do on the map. When you tap the location icon at the lower left of the map screen a second time, it changes to a new, previously unseen icon. It looks like a little wedge in a circle. When you activate it, you're good to go. Or spin.

I think if I were designing this I would have made it an option on the map to default to direction of travel, or North at the top. Oh well, nobody asked me. Not the most obvious GUI design, but I guess once you know it, you know it. Now you know it too.

Tags: compass, directions, iphone, iPhone 3G S, Iphone3gS, maps, tips

Filed under: Odds and ends, Found Footage, iPhone

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

by Michael Rose (RSS feed) on 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 Dream, the news of a magnetometer included with the 3G S -- allowing the phone to determine its direction with respect to the real world, along with position (GPS/SkyHook) and orientation/acceleration (accelerometer) -- starts to make geeks drool with eagerness for practical heads-up displays or browsable views of the world.

Here it comes, folks. As noted over at 9to5Mac, the Layar app from Dutch developer SPRXmobile will get Android phones into the realm of science fiction X-ray specs when it comes out at the end of this month. Point your phone across the street to see what houses are for sale, which bars are offering happy hour specials, or where the nearest ATM might be. A live, animated overlay points out the key locations and moves with your camera view. It's tough enough to describe, so I've got the video in the second half of this post -- but the effect is impressive. The previously-announced Wikitude app gives a travel guide the same augmented treatment for Android.

The guys at IntoMobile have given Layar a good once-over and come away quite awed. I can't wait to see this app, or one like it, make it over to the App Store. Add some social networking features from Brightkite or foursquare and iPhone users will jump all over this -- but they'll have to be careful not to walk into lampposts.

[via MacRumors]

Continue reading “Layar app for Android presages the augmented world of iPhone 3G S”

Tags: android, augmented reality, AugmentedReality, compass, iphone 3g s, Iphone3gS, layar, magnetometer

Tip of the Day

F11 moves all your windows off the screen so you can quickly glance at your desktop. F10 shows you every open window in an application. F9 shows every open window for every application that isn't hidden or in the dock.

Learn More

TUAW flickr Pool

www.flickr.com

Featured Galleries

TUAW bloggers (30 days)

#	Blogger	Posts	Cmts
1	Steven Sande	51	4
2	Mike Schramm	33	0
3	Dave Caolo	32	1
4	Mel Martin	30	0
5	TJ Luoma	22	26
6	Joachim Bean	19	2
7	Erica Sadun	17	2
8	Victor Agreda, Jr.	16	7
9	Michael Rose	15	14
10	Sang Tang	14	1
11	Josh Carr	13	22
12	Ken Ray	12	2
13	David Winograd	11	18
14	Brett Terpstra	10	8
15	Tim Wasson	4	1
16	Chris Ullrich	4	1
17	Megan Lavey	4	8
18	John Burke	4	3
19	Kent Pribbernow	4	0
20	Aron Trimble	3	2

More Apple Analysis

AAPL on BloggingStocks The Apple category feed from BloggingStocks.com
AAPL Quote, News & Summary The AAPL financials page from AOL Money and Finance
iPhone analysis from BloggingStocks iPhone tag feed from BloggingStocks
Macintosh news and reviews on Download Squad The Macintosh category feed from Download Squad

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)