Earthcomber – Personal Radar for iPhone

By Lonnie Lazar (1:18 am, Dec. 18, 2008)

You yourself might not be an actual superhero, but with Earthcomber, a free GPS-leveraging search/mapping/social networking app for iPhone and iPod Touch, you can have “superhuman awareness,” according to developer Jim Brady.

Preloaded with a comprehensive database of restaurants, movie listings, events, historical sites, local information and more, the app lets users tag their interests – for example, Greek cuisine, historic buildings, hot chai tea, or free WiFi access. They can also add their own items, and invite friends so they can find them as well.

Earthcomber then scans an area for any matches, using the iPhone’s GPS. Any place that has anything of interest is announced by an optional chime.

Earthcomber is different, according to Brady, because it utilizes multiple technologies so the user doesn’t have to jump from one application to the next to accomplish related tasks. “That’s the whole point,” Brady said. “We don’t have to turn off our eyes to start up our ears, and we sure don’t have to fill out a search box for our brains to work. Earthcomber uses mobile technology as a powerful extension of our natural abilities, so that we can be constantly aware of what’s right around us.”

Earthcomber won Nokia’s 2008 Mobile Rules! competition for “Best Infotainment” application. The company provides USA service today and plans international coverage with a coming update.

Posted by Lonnie Lazar in News, Software, iPhone, iPod Touch | Comment on this article

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Lonnie Lazar

Lonnie Lazar is a writer-musician-web designer-attorney. He writes about Apple for Cult of Mac and Mac|Life, and about VoIP and telecommunications for Voxilla. Follow Lonnie on Twitter @LonnieLazar, join the Cult of Mac on Facebook, and find Lonnie's photos on Flickr.

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4 comments

    [...] the example place here:  Earthcomber – Personal Radar for iPhone | Cult of Mac Leave a comment Comment RSS Previous: Apple approved 14 new iPhone fart apps — [...]

    Earthcomber - Personal Radar for iPhone | Cult of Mac | IPHONE NEWS, on December 18th, 2008 at 10:38 am

    I checked out Earthcomber at the App Store and it looks interesting.

    But there’s something very weird going on with the star rating system. There are only 7 reviews of it so far, ranging from 2 stars (but from someone who describes the app as ‘amazing!’), to 3 stars (including from someone who admits he hasn’t tested it out yet…WTF?), to several 4/5 star ratings.

    In all there were 29 stars in total awarded by 7 reviews, for a rounded mean rating of 4 stars. (In this case the median would be similar.) Sounds fair, right?.

    But the summary at top right reports an Average Rating of 2-1/2 stars!

    What kind of Voodoo Math is that?

    NeilM, on December 18th, 2008 at 1:27 pm

    Not only that – the “release date” says Nov. 23rd. In fact, I know that just appeared in the Apps store for the first time last Sunday.

    Wonder why they haven’t featured it, either? I’ve never seen anything like this before, and I try all of ‘em. Maybe they didn’t pay Apple like the featured apps that are never labeled as advertised placements.

    Anna, on December 19th, 2008 at 3:20 pm

    I also just found it in the Apple Store. Pretty amazing feature! The GPS kicks ass.

    Who owns these guys? Sprint? AT &T. I’m no geek, but I never saw anything like this. Am I missing something? Or is this F’n kick ass!

    Tre, on December 19th, 2008 at 3:43 pm