Hot, Hot, Hot! A Twitter Augmented Reality App for iPhone
There's a fascinating new Twitter app in development called TwittARound, an augmented reality Twitter viewer for the iPhone 3GS. With the app, you can see live tweets around your location and you can even see how far away they are. To accomplish this, TwittARound uses a combination of the iPhone's compass and its accelerator-enabled GPS to determine the location of tweets and then layers those on top of a live video feed. The end result is a Twitter AU experience that looks incredible...at least in the YouTube video. Unfortunately, there's a big problem with this amazing new creation: Apple won't allow it in the App Store.
Even though jailbreakers can enable video on the iPhone 3G, TwittARound will only work on the 3GS. That's because the app uses the 3GS's new built-in digital compass to help determine location - a feature not available on older models. However, there's no reason why a downward-compatible version of this app couldn't be built in the future which relied only on the GPS unit.
According to a post on i.document, the technical details about TwittARound are as follows:
"The whole application was developed in Webkit (UIWebView/Safari Mobile). A native Cocoa wrapper delegates location, compass and accelerometer to Javascript in the UIWebView. The 3D scene is based on Safari Mobiles brilliant 3D CSS transforms. The AJAX part is done with jQuery."
When using TwittARound, the avatars of nearby Twitter users float through the top of the screen where the live video feed is displayed. Tap on any of the avatars to see their Twitter feed which will show up at the bottom. It's a simple but elegant way of interacting with an augmented reality.
Apple Doesn't Permit AU Apps
Unfortunately, TwittARound and all other augmented reality apps in development, won't ever make it to the iTunes App Store because they're built using non-public APIs. Officially, Apple's iPhone SDK does not offer access to any APIs for manipulating live video, forcing developers to use the available but unsupported ones instead. That's a shame because as you can see, there are a lot of unique concepts out there for implementing Augmented Reality on the iPhone.
In fact, this is one important area of development where Google's Android OS has the edge. Already, we've seen new AU Android apps like Layar come about - an app which could very well represent the future of augmented reality.
Even on the Nokia platform, AU is surging ahead. Earlier this year, for example, the creator of the "Heroes" TV show announced his upcoming AU app called "TEVA" which will use Nokia's video recording features in a new ARG mobile game.
Sadly, unless something changes at Apple, the AU developer community will simply move on to other platforms, leaving iPhone users behind. However, there's still hope. According to some hearsay out there, Apple is interested in enabling these types of apps. In other words, it could be a question of "when" and not "if." We only hope that they do so sooner than later.
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AU is so hot. I hope they change their minds. I have an astronomy app that uses a 3D rendering of the sky instead of video, and it works great. I'm going to have to check out layer now. Thanks for the tease:)
Very similar problem with Camera apps with customized UIs - Apple changed its policy and rejects their updates recently, only because those apps are accessing subviews of the default camera interface. Frankly their app approval policy is broken. See here for details:
http://www.stepcase.com/blog/2009/06/15/apple-killing-off-photo-apps-with-custom-camera-ui/
You mean to say this is another app Apple are not allowing!
I am still waiting for my iPhone app for my website http://www.appgiveaway.com to be ok'd, I am getting concerned as I have been waiting over 2 weeks now.
I am not sure whether the long time I am waiting is a good sign or bad one afterall you hear of Apple refusing straight forward apps into the App Store.
Ah I see the app is built using Non public API, I misread the post ;-)
Can any Apple developers comment on whether new new Video API's released with the iPhone OS 3.1 beta seeded not long ago would cover this area of functionality?
"However, there's no reason why a downward-compatible version of this app couldn't be built in the future which relied only on the GPS unit."
Wouldn't you need the compass to figure out which direction the video camera is pointing?
AU is definitely going to influence gaming. Particularly with the iPhone. The new 3G S has the navigation feature that will make for a great experimentation ground for developers.
-Ethan
AU means Augmented Unreality?
Well, they do accept some apps of that sort. Have a look at "Email 'n' Walk"
I bought it on the App Store and they use live picture from the camera in the background
careful this could lead to live real time conversations with people
This is exactly what I was looking for. Another way to see my Twitter Tweets :)
I have started a facebook group petitioning Apple to open the API for video augmentation. This will allow agmented reality apps in the store! Please join and pass it on:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=105162007611
It's a great project for people.
This is really a great idea I am surprised it's not in wider use already.
TwittARound finally made it in Apple's App Store:
http://bit.ly/5KH8RV
HAHA this app looks extremely fun to use. From an iphone developer standpoint this is extremely innovative. I am anxiously anticipating using it! I can't imagine it being really useful though, just cool to use once in a while.