Appiphilia: Augmented reality iPhone apps for finding subways and Twitter neighbors
When Apple announced the addition of a compass to the iPhone 3GS, shortsighted onlookers responded with a yawn. Yay, we can find magnetic north.
But iPhone app developers quickly saw an opportunity, and a new breed of "augmented reality" apps are about to be born.
Holding the phone in front of you, locations are plotted on a live view of the world in relation to where you're standing. The apps combine the phone's key features -- camera, GPS, compass and Internet connectivity -- to create a sort of heads-up display reminiscent of first-person shooter video games.
The first two poised to hit the App Store -- pending Apple's approval, of course -- are Nearest Tube, which plots subway stations in London, and TwittARound, which shows nearby Twitter users.
Nearest Tube overlays information about subway stations, including the stop's name, its distance from your current location and which lines it serves.
The first version of the app, which has already been submitted to Apple, will cost $1.79 per city and will ...
... only support two U.S. cities to start -- New York and San Francisco, said Chetan Damani, director of app developer Acrossair, on the phone from London. You can see a demo of Acrossair's New York version in the video above. Apps for London, Tokyo and Berlin have also been submitted.
Acrossair's website indicates that they're testing versions in Chicago and Washington as well. Despite Google Maps having finally added support for the Los Angeles transit system last week, Damani is unsure whether they'll release a version for L.A. any time soon.
"We need to see if the subway system is big enough," Damani wrote in an e-mail. We expect Acrossair will be fairly disappointed with our comparatively small public transportation system.
But TwittARound will work right off the bat for L.A. techies. Like the subway app, you hold the phone in front of you and then get a view of tweets based on their location data -- as long as the user has decided to share that information. TwittARound isn't available on the App Store yet either, but there's a demo on YouTube for those who can't wait to get a sense of what it's like to step into augmented reality.
IPhone 3GS users are about to get some new toys that will no doubt make users of iPhone ancestors pretty jealous.
-- Mark Milian
Augmented reality is much more than a GPS in your phone. Some of the most creative minds are cooking up creative ways to integrated augmented reality with mobile content. Nokia just opened a research center in Hollywood and according to its head, professor Rebecca Allen, the first thing they're looking at is...augmented reality. Expect much more and much more creative apps from the mobile community.
http://www.mobilizedtv.com/nokia-opens-hollywood-research-center
http://www.mobilizedtv.com/nokia-hollywood-lab-inks-usc-deal
Posted by: Debra Kaufman | July 13, 2009 at 03:59 PM
Augmented Reality can be used for a lot more than just mobile applications - we've created a prototype for Online Shopping called the Webcam Social Shopper that blends AR, Motion Capture and Social Media to help bridge the gap between offline and online shopping. You can check out information on our prototype here:
http://weareorganizedchaos.com/index.php/2009/06/23/zugara-launches-online-shopping-app-utilizing-augmented-reality-and-motion-capture/
For latest and greatest in AR you can also visit - http://www.facebook.com/augmentedreality
Matt
Posted by: Matthew Szymczyk | July 13, 2009 at 06:30 PM
Makes me wish i would of waiting to get my iphone just a few more days. haha
Posted by: Patrick | July 14, 2009 at 08:58 AM
Great that you are giving Augmented Reality attention. It's hot right now!
We just launched Layar, an Augmented Reality browser which works with "layers" as does the web with pages.
Watch the short video here: http://layar.com/video-layar-worlds-first-mobile-augmented-reality-browser/
It works on the Android platform. Soon we will launch internationally and we are working on the iPhone version.
Last week we announced that Layar opened up its platform. All can now request a key to develop their own content or help others to get their content Augmented Reality. Are you a publisher, do you have a cool local review site or are you a library with great geotagged local pictures of your city: you are welcome! We already had an amazing respone and are welcoming more.
Fill out the API key request form at http://layar.com/api.
To help form and shape your ideas we developed the Dream Catcher, a simple powerpoint template with which you can make your own dreams of augmented reality. http://layar.com/make-your-own-layar-screen-shot-with-the-dreamcatcher/
Claire Boonstra
Layar.com
Posted by: Claire Boonstra | July 14, 2009 at 12:09 PM
As far as I know, the video API on the iPhone does not allow an app access to the live video stream. So it can't show what you're pointing the iPhone at on the screen with info overlaid. I know some have petitioned to Apple to add this API. That was only recently but does anyone know if progress has been made on this?
In the meantime I recommend everyone express their interest to Apple about this. They're no doubt already aware of their oversight but can't hurt to keep prodding them. I used their feedback form a few days ago personally. Maybe they'll squeeze it into the video API work they've done so far for OS 3.1. For me augmented reality is the biggest reason to upgrade to a 3GS. Until then I'm staying with the 3G.
Posted by: Anthony Hocken | July 14, 2009 at 12:56 PM
The link for the New York Nearest Subway iPhone app changed to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ps49T0iJwVg
acrossair
Posted by: Marton | July 28, 2009 at 10:56 AM
how great can that application get :) it looks awesome
Posted by: iphon3n3wz.com | September 15, 2009 at 05:32 PM