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iPhone 6

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11–20 of 319 posts

Re: iPhone 6

#11
post #5
post #3

Barometer is very cool addition. I'm sure they'll eventually have an API for it.

What is it used for in the phone?

Barometers are often used to improve motion tracking accuracy, not sure if this is a common use case for phones.

Re: iPhone 6

#12
post #6
post #2

Biggest news for me: barometer! Biggest question: Can we access it to read raw atmospheric pressure? There seems to be no documented API.

How is that going to be useful?

I'd be interested in this for tuning carburetor jets. I'm sure there are lots of air-density related uses.

Re: iPhone 6

#14
post #10
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that going to be useful?

I'm building a dense network of atmosphere sensors using smartphones in order to build a more accurate weather model [1]. Android's APIs allow us to access the raw data, but all of Apple's marketing talks just about "elevation". I'm hoping they give us access to the raw sensor, and not just elevation change. Humanity ought to have a much better weather forecast than we have now, as we're nearing 1B+ internet-connecte…

How is what you're building different from PressureNet (https://pressurenet.io/)?

Re: iPhone 6

#15
post #11
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is it used for in the phone?

Barometers are often used to improve motion tracking accuracy, not sure if this is a common use case for phones.

How is that helpful in motion tracking?

Re: iPhone 6

#16
post #14
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm building a dense network of atmosphere sensors using smartphones in order to build a more accurate weather model [1]. Android's APIs allow us to access the raw data, but all of Apple's marketing talks just about "elevation". I'm hoping they give us access to the raw sensor, and not just elevation change. Humanity ought to have a much better weather forecast than we have now, as we're nearing 1B+ internet-connecte…

How is what you're building different from PressureNet ( https://pressurenet.io/ )?

I'm building PressureNet :) (edited my post above to add that)

Re: iPhone 6

#17
post #5
post #3

Barometer is very cool addition. I'm sure they'll eventually have an API for it.

What is it used for in the phone?

It means instead of waiting for a GPS lock in 30 seconds it's under 10.

The barometer makes calculating your position via GPS much quicker, as it has an additional piece of data to simplify some of the maths it does.

Edit: here's a source which may confirm - http://pocketnow.com/android/google-confirms-barometer-inten...

Re: iPhone 6

#18
The iPhone6+ looks just like one of those giant Android monsters from Nexus or Samsung. This makes me sad.

I have small-person sized hands and often struggle even with the normal iPhone5 and the trend for making phones bigger and bigger makes me angry and sad at the same time. I hate it and always, always, when my friends would ask why I prefer Apple over cheaper and better speced devices, my answer was "Because Apple is the only phone that doesn't compete on screen size".

This throws that out the window. Great.

Re: iPhone 6

#20
post #5
post #3

Barometer is very cool addition. I'm sure they'll eventually have an API for it.

What is it used for in the phone?

How much elevation are we talking about? Will it detect if I crouch and stand up, or you mean more geo-based elevation?
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