When the iPhone 4 was announced, there was one feature many of us were skeptical about: the gyroscope. I think the problem was that many didn’t catch the differences between an accelerometer and a gyroscope, and Steve’s jenga demo surely didn’t help in making these differences very clear. Ngmoco’s first FPS for the iPhone 4 was the first app to truly take a adavntage of the new technology.
Acrossair, developers of many AR apps for iPhone, decided to give us a demonstration of how much their AR browser can be different whether it’s run on an iPhone 4 and a 3GS.
ReadWriteWeb reports:
“With the gyroscopic readings coming from the phone, AR apps can now more accurately determine a user’s motion and direct change while holding the device. Icons, which previously jittered and skipped as the user moved – a problem that plagues all mobile AR browsers – can now move in smooth fluid motion.
The gyro on the iPhone does a much better job of picking up subtle motion than the early model does. The difference is a small one, but the increased realism produced by the gyroscope is just another step toward making the overall AR experience more immersive.”
This is just a glimpse of what’s possible with a gyroscope built in a cellphone. Give developers a few more months and you’ll see.
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