

Ask HN: Is iphone 4's gyroscope magical? - nrbafna

Though Steve Jobs termed the Gyroscope magical and awesome, was it truly a new feature?<p>I tried this. Opened Google Maps on Samsung Spica, zoomed in into New York map, switched to street view and turned on the compass mode. 
Voila! 
It seems to do the same thing as in the "awesome" demo from Jobs. Rotate the phone around yourself, the 360 degree views also rotates. Try this on your Android. 
Though, it need not be the exact same thing technology wise, but it "seems" to do the same thing.
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dirtyaura
Combine gyroscope, accelerometer and compass, and you get very precise data
about movement of the device. Together they basically enables you to do very
interesting motion control stuff. Think an always-with-you Wii controller, but
better.

I bet that there will be a lot of cool innovations coming. In the beginning,
they will be mostly games, but it will be usable for many kinds of real world
control tasks, too.

(More info about gyroscope
[http://forums.appleinsider.com/showthread.php?threadid=11060...](http://forums.appleinsider.com/showthread.php?threadid=110603))

~~~
nrbafna
That clears my doubts on the gyroscope. This does open ground for a lot of
innovation.

