Bing is beginning to find its way onto the iPhone through apps that build on top of its APIs. One that just hit the iTunes Store is an augmented reality app called Robotvision (iTunes link). Like other AR apps, it uses the video camera on the iPhone 3GS, as well as the GPS and the compass to bring up data about nearby restaurants and shops, including reviews. It gets this local business data from Microsoft’s Bing search engine.
Once you find a place nearby, you can call it the business from within the app. A lot of this functionality is already in the current Yelp iPhone app hidden as an Easter Egg, but Robotvision has some nice extra features. For instance, a feature is triggered by looking down at the screen, which shows the business and others like it as pins on a map. You can toggle back and forth between augmented reality view and map view depending on how the phone is positioned. (see video demo below).
Robotvision also shows you nearby Tweets and geo-tagged Flickr photos. I’m not sure how useful these are in an augmented-reality app. Basically, these are best suited for surfacing information about a place directly in your view or right around the corner. There are plenty of Twitter apps, like Twinkle, that show you nearby Tweets. For the most part these are pretty useless unless they are people you know. I guess it would be cool to be able to point your phone’s camera to a crowd and see related Tweets from people in that crowd, but Robotvision isn’t quite that advanced yet.
Last month, Microsoft announced its Bing iPhone SDK, which this app is using.
Here is a video demo recorded last month:
I’m pretty sure whoever made this video is my next-door neighbor, judging by what that GPS showed.
Let me know if you’d like a demo.
I’ll buy you a donut.
great news for two iPhone-lovers like Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer…
Yes great news. Has anyone tried using the above application? I guess robot vision has got some features similar to Bionic Eye.
How do you think Steve Jobs feels? His baby now has to put up with Bing!
great news for two iPhone-lovers like Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer…
sorry for the post duplication
Bing FTW
nice work. the content quality needs improving. i live in w. village nyc and pointed my camera to empire state but didn’t get too much content. also, i think these ar apps are going to make me want to build a phone app i always wanted to build – a neckbrace where you can slot in your phone and don’t have to look down all the time (and bump into people). desktops are going to give us RSI and smart phones are going to give us double chins.
Awesome App! Way to go!
i love this app, i bought it, it does exactly what it should. the only thing is the twitter/flickr part does not add a lot of… feeds? i guess it will be called? i get 1 twitter feed every time i start up the program, and sometimes they are from different people. and while i use tiwtterific on my phone and do a nearby search i get like 15 people. i just think the app needs to get its feet off the ground first i guess. but again this app is amazing and it does everything it says it will do. its a must buy.
Great … nice app … and for the ppl who think.. Bing doesn’t show proper results thats their misunderstanding … I needed around 50 resources .. I checked Google for that .. It was difficult to get those sites .. I check near abt 300 to 400 search results in Google .. and i hardly got what I wanted .. then I switched to bing .. and I got what I wanted .. the sites which were between 40 to 50 .. there all were lined up there .. at that time wished I really would have searched on Bing at first .. Bing Works !!!
Best,
Daina