Layar now adding layers of augmented reality to iPhone
By Ross Miller 
posted October 14th 2009 10:21PM
posted October 14th 2009 10:21PM
Since your Android handset-owning friends and colleagues can't have all the phone, Layar has finally made the leap to iPhone. It's now available in the iTunes app store for the enticing price of nada, with its own third-party ecosystem to boot -- only iPhone 3GS customers need apply, though, since without the magnetometer this is kind of a wash. We've only spent a few minutes with the new version, but it seems like much of our initial impressions from August seem to hold true, for better and for worse. But don't take our word for it, download away! [Warning: iTunes link]
[Via Wired]
[Via Wired]
Yea, download it a few hours ago. Really liking it. It beats out all the other augmented reality apps in the store.
Finally, AR apps are finally here
Dang, 3.1 only.
ughh you're right. i wont ever update to 3.1 if they don't really make me to.
I can't wait to see the smarmy advert claiming this and implying it's an exclusively-iPhone app.
Can we please stop with the whining and bitching about Apple? We get it, you're jealous of Apple users. Now STFU and watch while people buy Apple stuff anyway.
Oh nice you have a picture of Android peeing on Apple, How clever, did you come up with it yourself?. I am astounded. That kind of originality and creativity is what this planet needs in order to prevail.
/s
Funny thing is, reality is already augmented... It's what we refer to as perception. This might be augmented augmented, which may bring us back closer to the truth. ;)
Anyway, glad we can have some more baloons.
Augmented reality is a cool concept but creates a stupid and unnecessary line between it and having equally functional applications which simply do not show what is visible through the camera.
With a map and gps this would arguably be more functional than showing that information at a less convenient angle plus what I can already see with my own eyes.
Its all marketing, you wouldn't cover it if it was the former.
There's a big difference between finding the building you see with your eyes on the little map in your hand and actually seeing the tag on the building through the camera. Spatial thinking doesn't come naturally to everyone. Besides this is just a small step toward augmented reality as you still need to hold a phone up to what you're looking at.
I agree with Lazarpandar completely. While I think that there is potential in the future for cool things with augmented reality right now it's not of much use at all.
People say, "But you can see tags right on buildings!" even in a good deployment you can only see that while staring through a 3" phones screen with poor resolution. It will just give everybody tunnel vision where they only pay attention to the grainy overlay on their phone; the rest of the world passes them by. It shouldn't be called "Augmented Reality", it should be called "Limited Virtuality".
And that's only on good deployments. I respect what the guys are doing at Layar, but frankly it's crap. Look at the picture above, it doesn't really put tags on buildings, it just gives you a first person perspective with pictures behind it. Of ten times the ballons don't match what you're seeing. The picture above is the best I've seen and that only works because it's being used 10 stories up. On the ground nothing ever matches up.
A top down map that orients to the direction you're facing is far more effective at giving you useful information.
App is not really stable. Crashed on me twice in less than 5 minutes. It's cool though. Glad that this finally comes to the iPhone.
how come the Terminator didn't have augmented reality vision?
"Can't have all the phone"
Groan...
dunno why but i had to lol, thanks
its on a jailbroken phone
note the battery percentage
So close, but like other apps like this (yelp, urbanspoon) it depends on the 3GS compass which for me is worse than useless. The figure 8 trick doesn't properly recalibrate it and just standing still and tilting the phone will change the compass heading. Strangely, it seems accurate in degree of direction change, just not direction. It would be nice if I could manually set north on it since it's internal calibration is just broken.