Video: Nearest Tube iPhone app augments reality with directions

Augmented reality applications to this point could be best categorized as tantalizing to the mind, but otherwise pointless. Thankfully, it seems as if that's no longer the case. AcrossAir, a nascent app builder for the iPhone, has conjured up a slickly executed digital guidance application that augments video with real-time distance and directions to the nearest subway station. With the iPhone 3GS pimping an improved camera, inbuilt compass and GPS, we had a hunch that it wouldn't be long before someone slammed them all together and gave commuters and tourists alike a reason to smile. Presently only capable of serving up directions in London, this app should find plenty of user interest that will hopefully drive its development for other metropolises around the world. Click through to check it out for yourself, and expect to see it ready for download as soon as someone (or something) at Cupertino decides to start approving live video programs. Any day now, Apple...

[Via Tokyo-Genki]

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 7th 2009 12:11PM]

First? yay?

[RingmasterJ Posted Jul 7th 2009 11:14PM]

I live in London, so I know the problems with this app firsthand (although, I'm sure many worldwide city-dwellers do as well). The main issue is that it requires you to hold your iPhone out in front of you for extended periods while lost. The one time I used my iPhone, even clandestinely, to navigate in London, it attracted the wrong kind of attention, and I was mugged. Imagine throngs of tourists/lost people holding their iPhones right in front of their faces while walking around strange neighbourhoods. What's more, this app only shows you where the station is as the crow flies. London is a rabbit warren of alleyways and cul-de-sacs. Knowing that the station is "over there" is incredibly useless unless you know which streets to take. All that said, though, the technology behind this app is very cool. I just wish that it debuted in a... more thought out format.