iPhone 4 Has A Gyroscope Gaming

Apple officially unveiled the iPhone 4, its next smartphone, and while we won't cover the phone as a whole here at Gadget News and Info, the device will be getting a gyroscope.

Apple's iPhone 4

This has some nice implications for gaming as it should allow developers to make better use of the iPhone as a motion and gesture based controller. It should hopefully make the device much more precise.

Apple describes the new sensor on its website:

iPhone 4 is the first phone with a built-in three-axis gyroscope. When paired with the accelerometer, it makes iPhone 4 capable of advanced motion sensing such as user acceleration, angular velocity, and rotation rate. Translation: More motion gestures and greater precision for an even better gaming experience.

Steve Jobs just announced that the new iPhone 4 will include a gyroscope, which should be a great addition for gaming, augmented reality and even 3D apps.

Apparently the iPhone 4 beat this industry insider’s prediction of gyroscopes in a mass market phone by 2 years.

As you can see from the image at right, the gyroscope will allow:

• 3-axis gyro
• Pitch, roll and yaw
• Rotation about gravity
• Gyro + accelerometer provide 6-axis motion sensing
• New CoreMotion APIs

This announcement got a few hearty cheers apparently from the audience at WWDC, and as many iPhone app developers concentrate on the lucrative gaming segment, this isn’t too surprising. Some gaming applications that we can think of right off the bat include flight simulators, better augmented reality apps that take into account elevation/pitch changes, sport games (image iPhone 4 + Wii) and as Jobs demoed, games such as Jenga:

Images: GDGT