Re: separating compass heading from orientation?

Hi Dean,

On Thu, Jul 7, 2011 at 3:41 PM, Dean Jackson <dino@apple.com> wrote:
> Hi Steve,
>
> Apple unfortunately didn't have time to wait for a resolution here, so for iOS 5.0 we exposed two new (custom) properties for the DeviceOrientation event:
>

Well, I wish you joined the WG and attended our meetings. This topic
came up in Oslo and we couldn't reach consensus. It would've been very
useful to have you there too :)

> webkitCompassHeading - which is the alpha as described in the spec right now
> webkitCompassAccuracy - in degrees
>
> The alpha, beta and gamma properties have not changed since iOS 4.0 so they are still not world accurate. Rather they are based on a (possibly arbitrary) reference orientation. We (Apple) may look again at combining the compass into the alpha value, but not in the immediate future.

We already do this, although without any kind of filtering at this
moment. We're looking to change this.

> Our main problem now is not breaking existing content. The good news is that we have the property to set indicating real world orientation, and our compass properties are prefixed.
>

Since we do use the compass already, I was wondering if you had any
pointers to the content you mention here. I'd like to try it on an
Android device and see how it behaves.

Many thanks,
Andrei

Received on Friday, 8 July 2011 15:19:20 UTC