Augmented reality subway app comes to NY, SF

July 10, 2009 | Kim-Mai Cutler | Comments | |

picture-191British iPhone application developer Acrossair is bringing its augmented reality app Nearest Tube to New York today and San Francisco on Monday. Now called Nearest Subway, it superimposes directions to the nearest subway stops over the iPhone 3GS’ live video feed.

A few augmented reality companies have had difficulty launching on the iPhone because they say Apple doesn’t have a public application programming interface (API) for manipulating live video. The developers say they aren’t allowed to launch apps with private APIs.

Acrossair says it gets around this because it only uses the video feed as a background. Its app doesn’t need to recognize or alter anything in the video stream, said spokesperson Chetan Damani.

Damani says Acrossair will bring the app to other large cities where iPhone market penetration is high enough to warrant it.

Acrossair has six employees in London and Mumbai and is currently self-funded.

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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.

  • KM
    How helpful can this possibly be in SF? There's 1 BART line running under the city (and I suppose the MUNI lines are underground for a bit, but that just parallels BART anyway).
  • UnReal31337
    Might add bus lines too or just the important lines like the 38, 14 or 9X.
  • Will be interesting to check it out. Subway/Train stops are obvious, and more handy for a tourist. Much more interested to see things like TAT's Augmented ID. Or platforms that are open for users to self-tag.
  • acoward
    How do you suppose the phone in the demo obtains its location with any appreciable accuracy in a closed room where there is no chance for a GPS signal?
  • Ben
    The iPhone works out positioning using a combination of cell tower triangulation and GPS - it can get to within 50m in an urban setting with no GPS, judging by the first generation devices (which are GPSless).
  • KM - it would seem to me this is useful for lots of things, not just subways. Basically anything local -- restaurants, bars, etc. It's kind of like upnext.com on crack.
  • mgyarmati
    The link for the New York Nearest Subway iPhone app has changed to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ps49T0iJwVg
    Also there is a new video demonstrating the San Francisco Transit iPhone app. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpf0t3uV_4Q

    acrossair