Hands-on: IK's iRing brings air gesture control to iOS

Comments

• Reply 1 of 9

  daveinpublic Posts: 633member

  January 12, 2014 1:16AM

  The title said hands on, I was really hoping to see if the iRing worked well… How intuitive it was and how well it actually worked. I guess you didn't find that as important as listing the marketing material info.
• Reply 2 of 9

  leavingthebigg Posts: 1,291member

  January 12, 2014 3:34AM

  Back in April 2013, Brian White cracked me up when he announced his channel checks led him to believe Apple was developing an Ring television controller! I ridiculed the analyst multiple times throughout the year about the announcement. To see the product produced by another company is absolutely amazing!!
  
  Here is the link to Brian's announcement... http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/04/03/rumor-apple-television-with-iring-motion-controller-to-launch-this-year.
  
  Now I am pondering how to proceed with Brian's upcoming Asian channel check announcements. Hmmm...
• Reply 3 of 9

  vmarks Posts: 762editor

  January 12, 2014 9:39AM

  Quote:
  
  

  Originally Posted by daveinpublic 
  
  
  
  The title said hands on, I was really hoping to see if the iRing worked well… How intuitive it was and how well it actually worked. I guess you didn't find that as important as listing the marketing material info.

  
  

   

  Hi Dave, 

   

  This wasn't quoting material. This was me using it. I photographed someone else's hands wearing the rings, because juggling camera and focal length are hard. I understand you wanted video, but it works really well. Two observations you'll want to hear are, you need to stay within the camera's viewing area - if you're too close it's easy to move your arms high and not affect the app. On the show floor it's easy to be too close.

   

  The second observation is that the apps / recognition seem to take into account that human movement can be inaccurate especially when you're holding your arms out in front of you like a gorilla - so it felt as if there was a threshold between my movements and it responding. This was actually good for the music loops application, but this and the fact that I was way too close to the iPad made moving the Pong paddles hard.

   

  Also: one person playing both paddles in Pong can be hard - left arm, right arm, it would take more practice than I was able to dedicate time for on the show floor.

   

  For 25 bucks, I don't think there's a risk here - the music app was fun, and they're giving the SDK away to other developers for free. If other developers take advantage of it (and I think they should) there will be a range of cool experience you could have. Imagine touch gestures like the Angry Birds slingshot being replaced by physically pulling back the iRing? I know we've seen this sort of physical interaction in Wii and XBox/Kinect, but there's something about that experience that I think can be quite cool.

• Reply 4 of 9

  themacman Posts: 151member

  January 12, 2014 12:20PM

  I am not sure what the futur is for wearables that require any kind of movements beyond the way we naturally react to every day life. I just can't imagine people standing around or I motion, moving their hands like a magician, or moving your bread around saying "ok glasses", or moving your rest to your face answering calls or doing something else. I am probably wrong, but any wearable has to integrate with our natural movements and not make us look weird. The iPhone didn't require any change in our physical habits except when you use Siri.
• Reply 5 of 9

  maccherry Posts: 924member

  January 12, 2014 2:54PM

  The wearable biz is going to be the laughing stock of the consumer sphere. I can't wait to read the list of bs products that entered this idiotic arena and bombed! Although Apple will most likely kill them all and sell billions in this markets.
  iRing? GTFO! LOL!
• Reply 6 of 9

  guitarizer Posts: 1member

  January 12, 2014 3:06PM

  The only thing I dislike that they allready announced stuff 1 year ago that's still not availeable for purchase like the iLoude. Also the Blueboard was a long wait. I like the ring. It reminds me a lot of people who use the Wii controller to play Ableton.
• Reply 7 of 9

  daveinpublic Posts: 633member

  January 12, 2014 10:23PM

  vmarks wrote: »

  Hi Dave, 
  
  This wasn't quoting material. This was me using it. I photographed someone else's hands wearing the rings, because juggling camera and focal length are hard. I understand you wanted video, but it works really well. Two observations you'll want to hear are, you need to stay within the camera's viewing area - if you're too close it's easy to move your arms high and not affect the app. On the show floor it's easy to be too close.
  
  The second observation is that the apps / recognition seem to take into account that human movement can be inaccurate especially when you're holding your arms out in front of you like a gorilla - so it felt as if there was a threshold between my movements and it responding. This was actually good for the music loops application, but this and the fact that I was way too close to the iPad made moving the Pong paddles hard.
  
  Also: one person playing both paddles in Pong can be hard - left arm, right arm, it would take more practice than I was able to dedicate time for on the show floor.
  
  For 25 bucks, I don't think there's a risk here - the music app was fun, and they're giving the SDK away to other developers for free. If other developers take advantage of it (and I think they should) there will be a range of cool experience you could have. Imagine touch gestures like the Angry Birds slingshot being replaced by physically pulling back the iRing? I know we've seen this sort of physical interaction in Wii and XBox/Kinect, but there's something about that experience that I think can be quite cool.

  
  Aah, thank you for the quick and in depth reply. I guess I was looking for a little more of your opinion. Sounds like it was nice, and it didn't mess up as much as I was anticipating.
• Reply 8 of 9

  vmarks Posts: 762editor

  January 12, 2014 11:31PM

  Quote:
  
  

  Originally Posted by Guitarizer 
  
  
  
  The only thing I dislike that they allready announced stuff 1 year ago that's still not availeable for purchase like the iLoude. Also the Blueboard was a long wait. I like the ring. It reminds me a lot of people who use the Wii controller to play Ableton.

  
  

  iLoud and the pedalboard were both on display. 

• Reply 9 of 9

  ik multimedia Posts: 1member

  January 20, 2014 2:00PM

  iLoud is now and has been available for months, and iRig BlueBoard was available even before iLoud.