Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Gyroscope: how's it any different than what's in the previous iPhone?

F

firteen888

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 2, 2008
209
0
Hey all,

So I hear people raving about the new gyroscope in the iPhone 4, and I watched a video of that game "Eliminate:gun range" in action, but I can't figure out how it's any different than what the previous iPhones can do. For instance, I use tilt mode in Nazi zombies and i can tilt my phone to move the gun around just like in "eliminate" so what's the difference? Does the new phone just do it better? I don't have the phone yet to test it out so an explanation would be great. Thanks everyone.
 
You can now move side to side, up and down, forward and back to control movement. Before, you could only tilt the phone.
 
Instead of tilting, it's as if you're controlling in three dimensions. As you turn your body, the "person" holding the gun moves in-sync. It's not tilting to turn and you stop tilting to stop, you're actually moving with the player 1:1.
 
Here is the best I can explain it:

Imagine you have a picture of a room on the screen of the phone. You are looking at one of the wall and can see that there are other walls around you. with the previous iPhones you could tilt the phone around on its own axis to look around the room, but if you physically turned your body, the picture on the screen would not change. With a gyroscope in addition to being able to tilt the phone about its own axis you can move the phone within a three dimensional space about gravity. So, in our room example, if you are looking at one wall on the screen, you could physically turn your body and the phone could turn the picture on the screen so that you are now looking at a different wall.

Here are a couple of links that explain what a gyro is:
Link
Link
 
Hmm I think I understand a bit more now. I may have to actually try it to fully understand it. Thanks for the explanations.
 
So with this explanation, i would need to physically move around my house to make the character on screen move?
 
firteen888 said:
So with this explanation, i would need to physically move around my house to make the character on screen move?
Click to expand...

let us know how the bunny hop works or what happens when you run up and down stairs.

so if you have to get to the other side of the map do you have to get in your car and drive across town?

:D
 
The question is: How did they manage to have a gyro in a phone when there's nothing moving in it? Alien technology!
 
The compass will do this also.

Some of the astronomy apps can track your position 360, and up and down.

But a gyroscope will of course, do this much more smoothly, so it's better suited for games.

Fortunately, it may not be essential for the astronomy applications.

(couldn't hurt though).

Don't know.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back