Chapter 17. Accessing the Hardware
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS CHAPTER
How to obtain accelerometer data from your iPhone or iPod Touch
How to detect shakes to your device
How to obtain geographical data using the Core Location service in the iPhone and iPod Touch
How to display a map in your application
In the previous chapter, you saw how you could access the built-in applications on an iPhone and iPod Touch through various means — URL strings as well as using the specialized classes provided by the iPhone SDK. In this chapter, you learn how to access the hardware of your device, such as the accelerometer, and obtain location information through GPS, cell towers, and wireless hotspots.
USING THE ACCELEROMETER
One of the most innovative features of the iPhone and iPod Touch is the built-in accelerometer. The accelerometer allows the device to detect the orientation of the device and adapts the content to suit the new orientation. For example, when you rotate your device sideways, the Safari Web browser automatically switches the screen to landscape mode so that you now have a wider viewing space. Similarly, the camera relies on the accelerometer to tell it whether you are taking a picture in portrait or landscape mode.
The accelerometer in iPhone and iPod Touch measures the acceleration of the device relative to freefall. A value of 1 indicates that the device is experiencing 1 g of force exerting on it (1 g of force being the gravitational pull of the earth, which your device experiences ...
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