[feefer]

Are you unaware that GPS chips allow detection of one's orientation in space?

[mattmuir]

Thanks Feefer. That was my point about the iPod Touch - who knows what gems Apple are still to unlock? Perhaps the current phone can do compass, voice recognition & so on. Let's wait until next Wed/Thursday, until we can all get OS 3.0 into our phones to see what they can do...

[People_Eater]

feefer said:

Are you unaware that GPS chips allow detection of one's orientation in space?

No, GPS determines one's position in space. That's why it's calle "Global Positioning System." It's unable to determine which direction an object is pointing in. That requires... a compass.

[mikem_sa]

You beat me to it feefer. The 3G has a GPS chip, which should be able to detect orientation. That's why on most navs you can set it to point in the direction of travel and not necessarily just north.

With regards to marketting ploys / sense of reason, my points seemed to have been missed or perhaps not adequately elaborated. Even still some may still disagree with me

The fact that much of the technology in the 3GS could have been made available to the 3G (even at a cost) and was not limited by hardware or prohibitive development or logistical costs is a marketting ploy to me, for those with a 3G to want to upgrade where the real benefit of the 3GS i.e. performance, may not be incentive alone for the average buyer.

The sense of reason thing was is that if you already have a recent notebook, there may not be enough justification to upgrade to the MacBook Pro, but may end up getting tipped over by something as small as wanting a back-lit keyboard.

Marketing is important in business, call it cynism if you wish, but it does try and play on emotional decisions over rationale and often disguises the bare facts.

My points were not that technological developements are marketting ploys or that businesses should not have financial motivators for them. That's a different subject altogether.

[People_Eater]

mikem_sa said:

You beat me to it feefer. The 3G has a GPS chip, which should be able to detect orientation.

Why do you think this? It's absolutely not true. A GPS chip CANNOT detect orientation. It only detects position in relation to satellites.

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That's why on most navs you can set it to point in the direction of travel and not necessarily just north.

No, the reason that works is because the software interpolates direction of travel from the position of the unit over time. It relies on motion. If you stay in one position and rotate, the direction indicator will not be accurate. This works for cars, because they tend to travel in fairly straight lines, and don't rotate on their axis when they stop.

But it's not a compass, and it's not very accurate.

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The fact that much of the technology in the 3GS could have been made available to the 3G (even at a cost)

Really? So, Apple installed a hardware compass in the 3G, but decided not to "unlock" it, even though it could have been used as a selling point? They paid for hardware they didn't intend to use in that model? That makes no sense.

Also, tell me how you can magically upgrade the processor speed of the 3G via software. Tell me how you can turn a fixed-focus camera into an autofocus camera in software.

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and was not limited by hardware or prohibitive development or logistical costs is a marketting ploy to me,

And how would you know this? Given your apparently limited grasp on the capabilities of hardware and software, and the fact that you have no idea how the new iPhone implements any of these features, what's your source for this? Seems like you are just pulling stuff out of thin air... or somewhere else.

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The sense of reason thing was is that if you already have a recent notebook, there may not be enough justification to upgrade to the MacBook Pro, but may end up getting tipped over by something as small as wanting a back-lit keyboard.

And what's the problem with that? If you want a back-lit keyboard, then you want a backlit keyboard. But it's not like the keyboard is the only new feature. Heck, this is the first time that Apple has offered a small "pro" laptop since the demise of the much-beloved 12" powerbook.

It's fairly staggering that you think it's all about the back-lit keyboard, when there's so much else going on.

Also: if you already have a recent notebook, then why would you need to upgrade anyway, unless you are a fetishist for "must have the latest" - in which case, your addiction will lead you to buy whatever's newest anyway, back-lit keyboard or not.

[mikem_sa]

OK, you're right with regards to GPS. On it's own it cannot determine orientation. There needs to be extra sensors.

http://www.s3sensor....s3/compass.html

The sensors are most likely included vehicles with full factory GPS kits - not as much limitation on space, 3D-movement, weight and probably much cheaper and better performing than development of interpolation logic. Motion X GPS app ion iTunes does what you're referring to. When I use the video-in-motion on my car, the navigation freezes and stops functioning altogether. When I reset the system back to nav, the car determines orientation from a static position. Also, as I turn the map turns also without a lag, so it would need to be interpolating within the turning circle of the car and not straight lines. My strong suspicion is that sensors are included, but if you can provide a source that proves otherwise without being so keenly antagonistic, will be happy to have it.

Interestingly enough, one could always determine their heading through Google Earth by flipping the map from your position to direction you're facing and the compass would then show which way you're pointing, but I concede rather manual and not much use to applications to add extended functionality.

The backlit keyboard thing is probably more applicable to the current/out-going range of MacBooks where it's not on the lower level model, but it's on the other. The extra memory, processor and HDD on their own do not seem to be in parity with the price difference, so the backlit keyboard exclusion on the entry level seemed to me like a ploy. I suppose. it cannot be argued the same for the new range of notebooks, precisely because they are new product offerings and are not marketed alongside the outgoing range. In fact they have to stand out and apart and therefore the keyboard is not merely a ploy. I was thinking verbosely, as I was recently comparing the MacBooks. Sorry to offend you Steve Jobs .. I mean people_eater.

On voice recognition, I still doubt that it uses that much processing power. Add that to the fact that most apps on the iPhone cannot function concurrently and there's limited background processing, how would it be hogging resources away from other apps?

[feefer]

Wow, I've lost track of who's objecting to what, and what people's beefs are.


Regardless, Apple clearly has incorporated a mix of technologies which allows you to determine not only your position (ALA GPS), but also orientation (direction you're pointing). Whether they've done this via triangulation of cell towers (ALA pseudo-GPS), magnetometer chips, etc, whatever, but all I know is the demo showed the iPhone being pointed at objects/buildings, and the iPhone is able to identify them by referencing a data base or Google, etc. That's pretty cool, IMO, and the fact it cannot be done simply via GPS (which does show MY orientation on my EVDO Rev A device with GPS chip, even when walking) is all the more impressive.



Frankly, users could give a hoot how the magic is performed, just as long as it IS performed reliably, and without muss and/or fuss. And frankly, that's always been the magic of the iPhone; it pretty much will do what it says it'll do on the tin.... Call it marketing bluster or whatever, but people are allowed to value what matters to them; who is anyone else to tell someone what MUST be important to them? That's the beauty of a free market: let the buyers decide what works FOR THEM.

It's as simple as this: don't buy an iPhone if you don't want one. If no one does, Apple Corp will crumble in BK. Story over. But I wouldn't hold my breath, waiting for this. :)

[People_Eater]

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Frankly, users could give a hoot how the magic is performed, just as long as it IS performed reliably, and without muss and/or fuss.

Well, that's the kicker, and why I was trying to explain that the compass is a hardware device.

GPS interpolation, accelerometers, etc, could sorta roughly work out which direction you are pointing. Not very accurate. If Apple were to include a software compass using such methods on the 3G phone, it would make them look bad, because it would be a really crummy compass. Better to do things properly than use a half-baked hack. That's generally how Apple tends to do things - if they can't do a feature right, they won't do it at all.

[People_Eater]

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The sensors are most likely included vehicles with full factory GPS kits - not as much limitation on space, 3D-movement, weight and probably much cheaper and better performing than development of interpolation logic.

It depends on the unit. Many vehicular systems don't have a compass because it's not really necessary. Compasses are fairly common in hand-held units, because they are used for things like hiking, orienteering and geocaching where a compass is useful, and motion interpolated data almost useless.

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Motion X GPS app ion iTunes does what you're referring to. When I use the video-in-motion on my car, the navigation freezes and stops functioning altogether. When I reset the system back to nav, the car determines orientation from a static position.

Are you sure it's accurate? It's not just reusing the previous data? That's another reason this tends to work for vehicular system. When you switch off the car, it tends to be in the same position you parked it in when you left it.

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Also, as I turn the map turns also without a lag, so it would need to be interpolating within the turning circle of the car and not straight lines.

I wasn't saying that it is only capable of determining straight line movement - just that the paths cars travel in are fairly simple. You're constrained by the road, and with the map data, all it has to determine is "it looks like you're going down this street" - it doesn't need to determine direction to single degrees of accuracy.

How smooth it is depends on the sampling rate. When you turn a corner, it's just broken down into a series of very small position changes. So, if you "zoomed in" the data would look like a series of straight lines, like a polygon.

[mikem_sa]

Sensors are a better implementation. Motion X GPS probably not that responsive. My car has a compass or at least it displays one. The map heading arrow turns even when off-road. Video-in-motion cannot function concurrently with Nav. When Nav is reset, car is not necessarily in same position. The decision of having sensors or not probably more relevant in cellphones and considering the cost of the nav option on the car, I would be surprised if they just didn't install a magnetic sensor. Anyway, I'll stop digressing and return to the topic.