A Gyroscope That Will Set the Tech World Spinning
One of the most interesting new features in the iPhone 4 is the internal gyroscope that Apple CEO Steve Jobs demonstrated by playing a virtual game of Jenga. Combining a gyroscope with previous iPhone accoutrements -- like the compass, accelerometer and GPS -- is going to open new doors for developers on multiple platforms, and not just for gaming.
Yet I'm wondering where all the media love is for the announcement that Apple was sticking a gyroscope in the iPhone 4. Jobs demonstrated this by moving around on the stage while playing a Jenga-like game on the phone. The game "Pieces" instantly responded to his movements, and it did indeed hit new PCQ levels.
Game One
The gaming press is certainly having fun talking up the potential game-changing (sorry) impact from all this on that industry, and for good reason: The iPhone 3GS was already a first-class handheld gaming console even without the traditional buttons and joysticks. The accelerometer and the juiced-up processor provided a handy platform for developers to take their own games to the next level, and most of them came through, judging from the continued success of the App Store and the interest in writing for it, SDK restrictions be damned.
I wrote about this last September here, and I'd have to admit that the issues raised regarding pricing and developer decisions (do I write for the iPhone or Nintendo DS/Sony PSP? How do I make my game tell the difference between an early iPhone and the 3GS?) didn't seem to slow things down that much. Gaming apps are flying out of the Store, and since that story, I've interviewed other small developers who saw the gaming potential in Apple's smartphone and are hard at work trying to come up with the next "Plants vs. Zombies."
So now those developers have a gyroscope to think about as it works in conjunction with the smartphone's existing accelerometer, compass and super-fast A4 processor -- the same one found in the iPad. Now gamers can set themselves up in open space via a new way to control their characters or vehicles in a gaming app. And if it will work for the iPhone 4, why not the next versions of the iPad and the iPod touch?
But I want to hear some talk and read some thoughts about how the six-axis capabilities in the gyro/accelerometer/compass ensemble will affect next-level development of augmented reality apps. I have to admit that I'm a sucker for AR toys like Layar, which pop up balloons with Yelp recommendations, Wikipedia info andTwitter activity over whatever you're looking at live with the smartphone's camera. It's my own heads-up display on the world, and I rank the PCQ at warp factor 9. So now developers get to integrate a gyroscope into those particular applications, and there's nowhere to go but up -- while pitching and rolling.
A Big Spin
Market researchers at iSuppli are certainly paying attention. The company's report this week forecast that gyroscope suppliers would see their business zoom to US$220 million over the next four years from a standing start of zero in 2009.
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