Where Is The iPhone Compass Pointing?
A compass in the iPhone? What is all the hoopla about that? It is not as if it will change the world — a normal compass works better and does not need constant recharging.
Ah, but that’s exactly what it can do!
- What?
Change the world.
- How?
Through information overlays on top of the real world. You can turn the iPhone into a looking glass, revealing information associated with places, buildings and objects. Some of this has already been done in limited research projects 1, but it starts getting really interesting when there is a large user base browsing and submitting information.
THE ELECTRONIC COMPASS
Reportedly, the new iPhone will use the Asahi Kasei’s azimuth sensor No. AK8973 2, a magnetometer providing magnetic direction in three planes with an accuracy of 1.4 degree in each plane. With the magnetometer, you will be able to tell the orientation of the phone in three dimensions, and this, coupled with its location, provide a number of interesting possibilities:
- Accessing mobile services and data by using the phone as a pointing device for the real world. Gestures directed at an object/building/area could access services and information. Easier than navigating menus.
- Extreme resolution enhancement for Google Earth - Use the images snapped by iPhone users all over the world to automatically get high resolution up-to-date map images and extremely good 3D building detail.
- Orientation tagged images and movies. Why is this important? Orientation is the difference between seeing the Eiffel Tower or a fat french guy playing boule.
- Historical overlays. A window to the past. Scrub a slider on the iPhone screen to change the point in time and see the scene in front of you change accordingly.
- Scrub a time slider and look at a scene from the accumulated digital images that are mapping an area and you have instant animated history.
- iPhone Lightsaber fighting over Wi-Fi.
The last one might not be world-changing, but try to do that with your normal compass!
WHERE IS APPLE HEADING?
Apples inclusion of a compass is not only about making the iPhone a little more feature-rich, and it is not simply about catching up with the T-Mobile G1 powered by Google Android, which already use a magnetometer compass. It is of course useful to know what direction you are facing for navigation purposes and it will help with navigation at slow speeds, but these benefits pales in comparison with the emerging new possibilities created through the combination of all technologies in the new iPhone.
Why is Apple so interested in cramming all kinds of positioning technologies into the iPhone: GPS, WIFI-positioning, accelerometers and whatnot? Why is it important to have several sources of positioning data via the Mac OS CoreLocation framework and a compass for orientation?
Because looking for information in the context of your location is often very useful, and if you add the possibility to reveal all sorts of information simply by pointing a device like a magic wand, or walking around in an area, you will have an ease-of-use that beats anything else — but only if it works all the time, wherever you are. Having several different positioning technologies ensures it will work both indoors and outdoors.
A POINTING DEVICE FOR THE REAL WORLD
With a magnetometer compass built in, the iPhone will become a pointing device for the real world. Apple introduced the mouse to the computing world in 1983, and now it is time to introduce a new kind of mouse for the real world.
The difference this time is that it is also a computing device for the real world as well as a communication and entertainment device. It will have the ability to add text, images, audio and video and associate all this with a location. If we all share this information, the earth will be covered with rich strata of information. The ground will speak. 3
This is why Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone as a “magical” device that will “Change the world” back in 2007.
GEOBROWSING
It is all about storing location-based information in midair, on the spot, ready to be browsed by anyone passing by, and a new, largely untapped, field in advertising that has the potential to provide a huge revenue stream for Apple: Location-based advertising.
Is Apple going into the advertising business? Yes, it appears that they are already exploring and patenting the use of location-based iPhone ads. 4
This is the big thing that both Apple and Google are after.
Why is this going to be big?
What is the most efficient way for a restaurant to get new customers, besides word of mouth? Internet ads? Newspaper ads? TV ads? No, well targeted reasonably priced ads, served unobtrusively according to the interests and eating habits of possible customers that happen to be in the vicinity of the restaurant.
There are an enormous number of businesses all around the world looking for better ways to attract customers. Apple and Google will help rope them in, and they are going to make a lot of money in the process.
This is where the iPhone compass is pointing.
- 1 Towards Orientation-Aware Location Based Mobile Services, Rainer Simon, Harald Kunczier, Hermann Anegg, Telecommunications Research Center Vienna. (pdf) ¶
- 2 Japan’s Asahi Kasei to supply magnetometer for next-gen iPhone, AppleInsider. ¶
- 3 Geocorder, Halfbakery. ¶
- 4 Apple ogles location-based iPhone ads, The Register. ¶
