Augmented reality startups petition Apple for live video interface

July 3, 2009 | Kim-Mai Cutler | Comments |
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Augmented reality startups, which superimpose graphics and information on live camera feeds, say they are having difficulty releasing applications on the iPhone and may turn to Google’s Android platform instead. More than a dozen companies and research institutes have signed a petition asking Apple to offer an iPhone application programming interface (API) for manipulating live video.

Ori Inbar, who published the petition and has founded two augmented reality gaming startups (Ogmento and Arballoon), says the companies need the API so they can overlay graphics or information on the iPhone’s live camera feed, not just on recorded video clips.

Inbar says he’s developing a game for the iPhone but can’t publish it because he’s using a private API, which isn’t allowed because developers are supposed to use Apple’s published APIs.

Smartphones are a major frontier for augmented reality technology, promising to bring it into everyday use for gaming or for learning about a user’s physical surroundings. Before the technology relied on cumbersome stationary cameras and computers.

A few startups like Mobilizy and SPRXMobile place geotagged Wikipedia information or real-estate listings over buildings and spaces shown in an iPhone camera feed while other augmented reality gaming companies show 3-D animations interacting with the real world. Both Mobilizy’s Wikitude and SPRXMobile’s Layar augmented reality browsers are for the Android platform, not the iPhone.

“The battle to determine the winning device has already begun; a public API to access live video will give the iPhone a lucrative ticket to compete. We believe Apple has a window of opportunity of about 3 months before developers start looking elsewhere,” reads part of the petition.

Apple did not immediately reply for comment.

Be sure to check out my story from earlier today profiling a number of augmented reality startups.

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Photo of Kim-Mai Cutler

About the Author, Kim-Mai Cutler

Kim-Mai was born and raised a stone's throw from Apple headquarters in Cupertino by a devout Hewlett-Packard family. After attending UC Berkeley, Kim-Mai worked for Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires in New York, Los Angeles, London and Buenos Aires. Follow her on Twitter at @kimmaicutler, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.

  • Outsourcing
    Wowww..! Dint Expect such a new product..! I would like to know more of its features..
  • David
    Why don't developers just develop an inexpensive external camera that plugs into the dock connector, allowing the camera to be clipped or worn as a pair of eyeglasses? CMOS sensors are now so incredibly cheap, that at least a proof-of-concept should be doable with little investment money wise, plus you can skip over the necessary API from the built-in camera, as the iPhone/iPod Touch would simply view it as a raw data input. This would also prevent the user from having to hold their phone up awkwardly, as the feed would simply follow their gaze.

    Just my $0.02
  • Name
    Having a external camera attached to your glasses would be fine if you wanted a live picture of you holding your iPhone, you couldn't look at the subject or object and at your iPhone at the same time.

    Maybe just have one attached to the phone, but that would be a bit pointless as the iphone already has a usable camera, Apple should just let developers have access to the API.
  • The Hyperfactory note in this (recommended) brief on AR that the lack of iPhone SDK means you don’t see AR campaigns on iPhone. Hyperfactory run AR campaigns for big brands like Nike and Coca-Cola (Fanta). So Apple isn’t just shutting out start-ups.
    It’s very noticeable that most of the AR innovation appears to be on Android, is that what Apple wants?
    The AR brief from Hyperfactory: http://www.mobithinking.com/white-papers/bring-...
  • Wowww..! Dint Expect such a new product..! I would like to know more of its features..
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