Apple Exploring Enhancing Maps with Augmented Reality

Would be pretty sweet!

I would love to see a native maps app with augmented reality features built into iOS, particularly if those maps aren't just limited to North America. Google maps are OK, but I don't feel they cover Japan all that well.

Man, Apple likes to take their sweet time in releasing stuff (and getting it right), but I really, really, want them to get this out soon.

It looks cool as it did with the many other Apps that have already done this.

But I'd be weary of granting Apple a patent nowadays. They don't play well with the other kids.

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I don't see the point of all this augmented reality. It's a nice idea, but truly, it's going to take ages before this gets into a product, and years after that before it works. And still, it'll take decades before it gives you the right amount of information, not too much, not too little.

I'd prefer pre-loaded maps (not having to rely on google and your data connection) with features such as Augmented Reality & turn by turn Nav available as add-ons/in-app purchases and work a deal with garmin etc so you're not stepping on their toes (not all of them anyway).


If every hyperlinked address/location opens the native maps app by default, then it would make more sense & be more fluid and streamlined to continue my Nav or points of interest experience in that app instead of C&P to open up Navigon/Garmin or any other.

This is really the only feature of iOS IMO where the "keep it simple Apple experience" is more like a Windows headache.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement of Augmented Reality, since the Rockefeller Center subway station is nowhere near the scene in that screenshot (Times Square).

How so?

iMartini said:

Not exactly a ringing endorsement of Augmented Reality, since the Rockefeller Center subway station is nowhere near the scene in that screenshot (Times Square).

Click to expand...

The app is suggesting to walk one block east to Sixth Avenue and another five to eight blocks north to the Rockefeller Center subway station. With this app to guide your steps.

Another software patent application for stuff that a) others have already done and b) that was shown in a lot of Sci-Fi movies that have been made in the last three decades. There's no original idea here, it's just a concept of an implementation of other people's ideas - like so many other things that Apple and other big players have received patents for.

Patent applications like this are evidence enough that there shouldn't be PATENTS for software. The existing copyright laws are more than sufficient to protect software ideas and implementations. But patenting software is just WRONG and counter-productive. I'm glad that we still don't have that here in Europe (you can only patent a combination of hard- and software in Europe, but not software alone).

UPDATE: I just read about this. Apparently, the US legal system is changing for the better.

See-Through AR glasses

This all comes alive when proper see-through glasses become available for consumers and connect to the device, so you see the directions arrows right where they belong, on the street! And not on the silly small phone screen held at arm's length!
That's why @vuzixeurope recent announcement of their STAR1200 is so relevant. Still a bit geeky and pricey, but consumer styled and priced ones can't be far behind.
I want these for face recognition. I'm terrible remembering names.

Hopefully then one could use this new location system to map new roads! It's almost criminal that only ONE map shows the new road after one and half years, in Washington D.C.!

Apple innovating again... Yay

Now, this would be cool.

Apple being Apple.

JuneBlug said:

This all comes alive when proper see-through glasses become available for consumers and connect to the device, so you see the directions arrows right where they belong, on the street! And not on the silly small phone screen held at arm's length!
That's why @vuzixeurope recent announcement of their STAR1200 is so relevant. Still a bit geeky and pricey, but consumer styled and priced ones can't be far behind.
I want these for face recognition. I'm terrible remembering names.

Click to expand...

That sort of reminds me of Heavy Rain for the PS3.

definetely a cool idea

Let's see if it actually gets to see the light of day

re quote from article

"Apple files many patent applications each week..."

aapl - the invention factory

There are Palm trees in San Fran?

how about add turn by turn directions first?

This would be incredible. Seems like a big data chewer though. And process intensive. But I can see it happening for sure.

Let's just hope they have the patent!

I like it!!! Great idea.

Sekai Camera (2008)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgTwSXK_5dg

^^^ Probably take several years before we see it perfected like that. Think of that newspaper tablet from 1994. It takes years before it has consumer-level prices. Only CIA or what you see in James Bond have amazing technology like that. Technology that cost in the thousands. I actually did have the Sekai Camera app installed on my iPhone and it just felt clumsy. Deleted it after a day. Augmented reality just isn't there yet.

I know Apple will find a way to pretend they invented augmented reality like they did with video calling. Motorola already has a fingerprint scanner on their Atrix for goodness sakes.

What I reallly want to see is future iPhones having a projector like what the Samsung Beam has. But while it projects on the wall, you can actually touch the wall for it to move things around. It responds. I want to get close to seeing things I saw in Minority Report.

For it to really work on a small screen, there will have to be different overlays for different needs. Otherwise it’ll just be cluttered with annoying information you don’t care about. I could see a social/crowdsourcing approach working to help provide such tailored realities.

jonnysods said:

This would be incredible. Seems like a big data chewer though. And process intensive. But I can see it happening for sure.

Let's just hope they have the patent!

Click to expand...

Why hope they patent it? Patenting this is exactly the problem. Everyone knows AR is where things are going. There's nothing revolutionary about this and AR programs already exist, but it's a huge, untapped field of potential. Patenting using it like this is really, really bad. What if a company managed to get a patent on GPS navigation?

Regardless, where AR really comes into its own is when glasses get cheap and light. AR obviously begs us to have the display directly in front of our eyes. Once we can do that, an entire world of possibilities will open up.

Winni said:

Another software patent application for stuff that a) others have already done and b) that was shown in a lot of Sci-Fi movies that have been made in the last three decades. There's no original idea here, it's just a concept of an implementation of other people's ideas - like so many other things that Apple and other big players have received patents for.

Patent applications like this are evidence enough that there shouldn't be PATENTS for software. The existing copyright laws are more than sufficient to protect software ideas and implementations. But patenting software is just WRONG and counter-productive. I'm glad that we still don't have that here in Europe (you can only patent a combination of hard- and software in Europe, but not software alone).

UPDATE: I just read about this. Apparently, the US legal system is changing for the better.

Click to expand...

I think you misunderstand what a patent is. You cannot patent an idea. You must patent a way to implement the idea. For example, even though I think it would be sweet to have a Star Trek Holodeck, I cannot patent the idea of it because I have no way of accomplishing it. Same goes for something as basic as a design patent. Even though somebody can make a mockup-prop of something they have not yet produced a functional device of that kind -- only a mockup. Getting the thing to actually function within the designed form factor requires engineering. If you could patent the idea the Roddenberry family would have made tons of cash suing the makers of flip-phones.

Patents must specify a working system or method to accomplish something. There are a bunch of guys right now trying to prove alternative power sources that some have mislabeled as "cold fusion". However, they cannot manage to patent these methods because the scientific community is opting to act like 16th century church institutions in denouncing their research. Hence, the scientific "experts" claim that their methods do not work and therefore they are being denied patents. The truth is that many of these scientists are making repeatable observations and creating a theory based on that, but their theory invalidates other theories that existing scientists get hundreds of millions of dollars in research grants for. Lookup "Blacklight Power" for more information on that.

Anyway, what it boils down to is that "ideas" are not patentable. Edison had an idea for a long-lived version of the electric light bulb long before he perfected it and proved his methods and system were functional. Further, the idea of doing augmented reality with overlaid directions can be accomplished through MANY possible methods -- it depends on how specific the claims are as to whether or not Apple's patent application would run into prior art. The trick is to avoid overly general claims so you don't run into prior art, while avoiding making overly specific claims so competitors can't just dance around your invention and do it slightly differently. Its a balancing act that typically requires several iterations from the USPTO.

UPDATE: I read the reference you provided and it is awesome. Reading those claims from CyberSource (whose software I have used in the past), I am glad they were invalidated. They did not get very specific and went for the overly broad here. So while you don't want to be too general in your claims to avoid prior art you also don't want to be too general because a court may rule that you are patenting a basic thought process. Check out this article from Nilay Patel too -- a very good read.