Ye olde London comes to the iPhone
Wayback machine for meatspace
The Museum of London has launched a free iPhone application showing what London used to look like way before the iPhone was invented.
Street Museum is a photographic database, linked to locations through Google maps and capable of overlaying on reality to provide a proper before-and-after look for those who'd prefer London with horsedrawn cabs and men with hats.
Outside the Reg office, as it was circa 1920
The application is Apple-only for the moment, which is a shame as it's genuinely good fun to see how familiar streets used to look and exactly the kind of thing that augmented reality should provide.
But if you do have an iPhone (or iPod touch, which won't do the augmenting but can still see the pictures) then take a look - it's free - and hopefully we'll get the chance to look at the history of some more cities. ®
COMMENTS
why apple only?
come on museum of london, get with it.
Where's the android version?
Re :/ why apple only?
You're going to see a lot more of this because of toss pot jobbs wanting everything written specifically for the iphone.
If this was written natively for the iphone its an entire rewrite to port to android et al, exactly what bad ol steve wants.
I was interested in going back to an iphone with the 4g (currently on nexus one - which is v good), but with this closed garden/wall/everything approach apple are moving to they are going to be too much of an apple only place.
One day, no doubt...
Some day, Google (or someone) will probably do this with the Streetview database.
Every day reality may suck, for many of us - but just look at what a great augmented reality, we will one day make, for our decedents!
(Assuming we're not all back to horse drawn carriages, by then, of course!)
Ancient history & the iPhone?
A match made in heaven!
iPhone's - yesterdays jam.
