On Sep 18, 8:59*am, Michael Ash wrote:
Matt Herron Jr. wrote:

Has anyone thought about applications for the iPhone 3G platform in a
glider? *It has an excellent sunlight readable screen with touch
interface that causes no loss of image quality. *It has an
accelerometer built in, a GPS that is probably better than spot,
wireless for speech commands, remote interfaces, etc. fast processor,
lots of ram for large maps and gesture recognition for panning,
zooming, etc. *Web access (where available) for a quick weather update
before launch. *Seems like an opportunity waiting to happen...

Come up with some good ideas, and maybe I will implement one!

It's something I've given some thought to. I don't have an iPhone and
don't want to pay for the expensive subscription, so I was hoping that the
second version of the iPod Touch would include GPS. Unfortunately it
didn't, so the iPhone is still the only one with that.

As for functionality, seems like it would be great to have a moving map,
glide amoeba, thermal finder, and any other goodies that could be stuffed
in there. I agree that it packs a great deal of power and would be a very
capable machine.

Unfortunately Apple has some heavy restrictions on what you can do with
the platform, including one that says "Applications may not be designed or
marketed for real time route guidance". I don't know if that would cover
this sort of software or not. From what I hear it's extremely difficult to
get a definitive answer about these things out of Apple without simply
building the app and trying to get it approved. It is possible to work
around these limitations and bypass Apple for distribution, but it tends
to be more work and limit your audience, making it kind of risky.

--
Mike Ash
Radio Free Earth
Broadcasting from our climate-controlled studios deep inside the Moon

I just took my new 3G for a flight. gpstracker application works very
well to track flights on google earth. Also gives Long/Lat speed as
well as altitude every 5 seconds. Check it out.