I’ve been working on an app called Explorer Glide that has turned into a really interesting experiment in how we interact with technology. The app lets you fly a bird over Apple Maps using the webcam on a Mac. There’s no joystick or complicated controls. As you move your head, the bird responds to that movement and starts to feel like it is actually flying with you. Almost you becoming the bird, we are one! I’ve been reading more about Human–Computer Interaction and particularly Natural User Interfaces, embodied interaction and camera based interaction. The idea that we shouldn’t always have to learn how a computer wants us to interact with it is really interesting. Instead, the computer can respond to movements we already understand naturally. This builds on Vision Pro projects I worked on earlier on in the year.
You can download on Mac only at this stage here:
https://apps.apple.com/au/app/explorer-glide/id6809633112?mt=12
For education, I think this opens up some really interesting possibilities. A student could fly along a river, follow a coastline, explore a geological feature, trace an animal migration route or travel between important places, all through a much more physical and intuitive interaction with a map. It changes the experience from simply looking at information on a screen to actually exploring it. That’s what I’m enjoying about building Explorer Glide. The technology is there, but it doesn’t need to be the focus. The interaction should feel natural enough that the student forgets about the controls and starts thinking about where they want to go.
Interesting in peoples thoughts.
Paul
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