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Demo of Digital Compass Used in an iPhone App

amazing!

that seems like so much work. i'm glad the developers of this are getting a lot of coverage. it's only $.99 so everyone should buy it. i have it and already thought it was really cool. but this version blows the original away!! they should easily sell a few million.
 
Oh sweet ANOTHER useless article about the very small upgrade to the iphone. Can we post another 50 threads of "hey look how much faster you can plug in the charger cable then the regular 3g" macrumors?
 
coolfactor said:
Final Cut is an Apple application, unless you meant something else?

To michael lauden, just wait until Snow Leopard is released. All of the current applications will be like new again.
Click to expand...

Pretty sure the application in question was Air Coaster. Everyone knows Final Cut is made by Apple. The point is that Apple is not wasting R&D on making nifty roller coaster apps for the iPhone - 3rd party developers are taking care of that for them.
 
Clark Gable said:
Oh sweet ANOTHER useless article about the very small upgrade to the iphone. Can we post another 50 threads of "hey look how much faster you can plug in the charger cable then the regular 3g" macrumors?
Click to expand...

Woah, somebody couldn't upgrade their 3G! :rolleyes:

It's actually a pretty major upgrade, I pity you for being such a little b!tch though.
 
lowbatteries said:
First: Is anyone else sick of people not only taking the time to read the iPhone news, but taking the time to follow the post to the comments and then reply how much they hate iPhone news? Get an rss reader, simply skip the articles that don't interest you, and stop pissing and moaning in the comments.

Second: wouldn't this be a little weird if you're playing this game while riding on a bus, the bus turns a corner and all of a sudden your view is turned around? Seems like any games that depended on it for interaction would be very hard to play while in motion. They need a 'life signs' detector, so they can detect the iphone's orientation to you.
Click to expand...

I was thinking the same thing. You wouldn't have to be in a bus, how about on a couch and you start playing the game sitting up, then decide to lie down on your back, then shift to one side or the other.
 
mlgacc said:
i am sick of hearing about the iphone..... when will apple get to real applications like final cut studio ? and bluray support.
Click to expand...

Then stop clicking on the iPhone articles.

I still want to hear about the iPhone.

Oh wait, I forgot... this website is all about you.
 
Clark Gable said:
Oh sweet ANOTHER useless article about the very small upgrade to the iphone. Can we post another 50 threads of "hey look how much faster you can plug in the charger cable then the regular 3g" macrumors?
Click to expand...

But it's 2 times faster then the iPhone 3G ! Plus it have compass ! :eek::eek::eek:
 
Stand and hold the phone near your chest, parallel to the ground, screen facing up to the ceiling.

Raise the top edge of the phone (with the sleep/wake switch) so the screen is facing you. This is "pitch". The accelerometer can detect it.

From the starting position, raise the left edge (with the volume controls) so the screen is facing right. This is "roll". The accelerometer can detect it.

From the starting position, you yourself make a left face move. This is "yaw". The accelerometer can not (easily) detect it. That's because what the accelerometer tells the device is (when not in motion) the direction to the center of the Earth (the direction of gravity) and this move has not changed it.

The compass detects change in yaw and that is why it is an important addition. With this in mind, you can see that most of the movements in the movie are changes in yaw and used the magnetometer.
 
Wow, very smooth! Considering how much an analog compass leaps around in my hand, I wasn't that optimistic!

Back when the iPhone was new and I wrongly assumed it already had this, I had all kinds of game ideas for it. Now they can live again :)
 
Lepton said:
Stand and hold the phone near your chest, parallel to the ground, screen facing up to the ceiling.

Raise the top edge of the phone (with the sleep/wake switch) so the screen is facing you. This is "pitch". The accelerometer can detect it.

From the starting position, raise the left edge (with the volume controls) so the screen is facing right. This is "roll". The accelerometer can detect it.

From the starting position, you yourself make a left face move. This is "yaw". The accelerometer can not (easily) detect it. That's because what the accelerometer tells the device is (when not in motion) the direction to the center of the Earth (the direction of gravity) and this move has not changed it.

The compass detects change in yaw and that is why it is an important addition. With this in mind, you can see that most of the movements in the movie are changes in yaw and used the magnetometer.
Click to expand...

Thanks, nice summary.

How about this:
Imagine the iPhone lying on a carpet, so there isn't any angle that's changed.
If I shift it now in one direction, say about 2ft (~60cm), this doesn't significantly change any sensor value, does it?
 
Lepton said:
Stand and hold the phone near your chest, parallel to the ground, screen facing up to the ceiling.

Raise the top edge of the phone (with the sleep/wake switch) so the screen is facing you. This is "pitch". The accelerometer can detect it.

From the starting position, raise the left edge (with the volume controls) so the screen is facing right. This is "roll". The accelerometer can detect it.

From the starting position, you yourself make a left face move. This is "yaw". The accelerometer can not (easily) detect it. That's because what the accelerometer tells the device is (when not in motion) the direction to the center of the Earth (the direction of gravity) and this move has not changed it.

The compass detects change in yaw and that is why it is an important addition. With this in mind, you can see that most of the movements in the movie are changes in yaw and used the magnetometer.
Click to expand...

Good explanation, you are right-on with it. I predict some cool additions coming to flight sim apps soon as well :) (Rudder control --> yaw) I'd like to see a sailing simulator come out now as well, like Virtual Skipper.

Also, a natural addition for the compass is to the Street View...I mean come on! This is such a "Duh!" ....to be able to spin around and see Google's version of your location vs. what you see in person. And the accelerometer can be used to control looking up or down.

Which brings me back to this roller coaster demo. This is very similar to the offerings of ImmersiveMedia (http://www.immersivemedia.com/). They are the company that provides the cameras to Google for street view. They have these awesome "dome" cameras that capture 360 degrees of video, so you can play them back and look in any direction you want. Same idea as street view, but think about if a movie were filmed with one of these cameras, and you could watch it on your iPhone/iPod touch in a special app that uses the magnetometer and accelerometer to let you look around in a semi-interactive manner as you watch the movie! I'm sure it will come out eventually...pretty cool stuff.
 
kurono said:
Thanks, nice summary.

How about this:
Imagine the iPhone lying on a carpet, so there isn't any angle that's changed.
If I shift it now in one direction, say about 2ft (~60cm), this doesn't significantly change any sensor value, does it?
Click to expand...

Well, the movement from your start position to end position required you to accelerate and decelerate the phone, so the accelerometer would pick up that.

But assuming that acceleration is negligible, the only sensor on the iPhone that detects the constant velocity your phone travels at between start and end (or the change in position from start to end) is the GPS. So with a combo of all three sensors (GPS, magnetometer, and accelerometer), you can really do a lot.
 
That's awesome! It has a lot of potential for first-person games like DOOM.

I could see this for other 3D apps like walkthroughs of buildings and maybe even the human body for medical purposes.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7A341 Safari/528.16)

Um, Google Earth already uses the compass. Been using it since 3GS day!
 
LeeTom said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7A341 Safari/528.16)

Um, Google Earth already uses the compass. Been using it since 3GS day!
Click to expand...

Google Earth on the iPhone does not currently use the compass. It only uses the accelerometer to look up and down ("autotilt"). There has been no update to the app since the 3G S was released, and until that happens, it won't support input from the compass.
 
That's fairly intense. Can't wait to see what other apps and games make use of this. Hope that proposed Google Maps thing where you point your iPhone at a landmark and get all the details comes into fruition.
 
KindredMAC said:
Now imagine this tech built into some eyewear that could be plugged into a PS3 for a game like COD:Modern Warfare 2..... You could look all around your environment without taking your aim off your target. It would make 360's Project Natal look childish. Even imagine a Resident Evil game where you could look over your shoulder to see a Zombie ready to pounce on you..... shivers.......
Click to expand...

Along those lines, I blogged on the topic of 3D/VR glasses as an iPhone accessory for O'Reilly:

3D Glasses: Virtual Reality, Meet the iPhone
http://bit.ly/7WqGi

Check it out, if interested.

Mark
 
michael.lauden said:
.....


first of all. final cut just had an update, and bluray is supported as a data medium.

second of all.

Apple isn't making these applications. Sounds like somebody is out of the loop a bit
Click to expand...

data medium? there is NO support to author bluray discs for FCP. and i dont care who makes the apps its all you ever hear about on here.... look at the last 20 threads probably 18 are about the iphone. nothing against you bud but its getting a little tiresome.
 
Pika said:
Where getting close to the Matrix folks.Yes.

Coverflow = X
Accelerometer = XY
Magnetometer = XYZ

That makes sense !

Accelerometer = iPhone position
Magnetometer = iPhone location
Click to expand...

No, no... I created an account just to reply...

First of all, you are mixing applications (Coverflow) with hardware elements (Accelerometer, Magnetometer).

You're right that the accelerometer covers two dimensions but the magnetometer covers just one. They complement each other to make three.

The accelerometer measures the phone's orientation with respect to gravity. So it can measure pitch and roll, because as you pitch and roll the phone one end is going to be higher than the other end and the accelerometer can detect the slope.

When you yaw the phone its orientation does NOT change with respect to gravity. It remains flat all around. So for 12 months Apple has told developers, "we can give you the location, pitch and roll of the phone, but not the yaw."

The magnetometer fills in the yaw by using the magnetic field of the Earth rather than the gravitational field. Now developers have everything about position and orientation. (Except a more precise GPS antenna...)

This app uses both the accelerometer and the magnetometer to show how pitch, yaw and roll all work in unison, and I think it looks great.
 
I just vomited all over my screen. Think I'll stick with side-scrollers.
 
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