Screenshots point to digital compass in new iPhone
(Credit:
Boy Genius Report)
Rumors first floated a month ago that there would be a magnetometer built in to the next version of the iPhone. Now there appear to be corroborating screenshots, which Boy Genius Report has obtained.
The images show a debugging menu with the option to "show in compass," that is purportedly going to show up when the upgraded iPhone debuts.
One of the interesting things you can do with a digital compass is introduce augmented reality-type applications, as MacRumors suggests. Mobile augmented reality can use a phone's camera and compass to let a device capture an image of a location, like San Francisco's Union Square, for example. Information from the compass would allow names of locations to pop up on top of the image.
While this would be new for the iPhone and for Apple, others (like Nokia) have been working on this exact type of mobile application for several years. HP Labs has also looked at the usefulness of mobile augmented reality.
A digital compass also allows for the iPhone to catch up to the G1's capability of doing Google Maps in "compass mode." In the Street View mode, as you move the phone around, so does the view of the map.
We won't find out for sure until Apple does release the next iPhone, which is expected to happen sometime this summer.
Erica Ogg is a CNET News reporter who covers Apple, HP, Dell, and other PC makers, as well as the consumer electronics industry. She's also one of the hosts of CNET News' Daily Podcast. In her non-work life, she's a history geek, a loyal Dodgers fan, and a mac-and-cheese connoisseur. E-mail Erica. 
In Seattle the "magnetic Variation" error is more than 40 Degrees. If it's tilted, it will sense the "Dip" angle in the field lines which can add 40 degrees or more in the US.
In summary, a magnetic compass just 'sort of" points north - mostly it doesn't point any where near true north. Without a LOT of arcane corrections, it will be useless for Augmented Reality which requires real pointing precision.
Now a MEMS inertial reference unit backed up with GPS attitude receiver could do it.
Also waterproof. FWIW.
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Dave
I have tried several "electronic' compasses, some with built in GPS devices, none of them work worth a damn.
What I want is a device that shows headings in digital format and GPS location. With all the declination business built in. With that information, I could return to the same spot and know the direction to point my camera to take exactly the same photograph as I did before. I would like these features in one device. The data should be easily used to meta-tag images that can be read by Flickr, et cetera... Ah, wishful thinking...
- by manualfunky June 6, 2009 2:12 AM PDT
- in this part of the world the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, if you cant figure out which way is north with that information you shouldn't be outside endangering the rest of humanity...
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