back to article Ye olde London comes to the iPhone

The Museum of London has launched a free iPhone application showing what London used to look like way before the iPhone was invented. Street Museum is a photographic database, linked to locations through Google maps and capable of overlaying on reality to provide a proper before-and-after look for those who'd prefer London …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ancient history & the iPhone?

    A match made in heaven!

    iPhone's - yesterdays jam.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    why apple only?

    come on museum of london, get with it.

    Where's the android version?

    1. RichyS
      Flame

      Because

      Because Android users don't leave their parent's basement to go outside. </flamebait>

  3. Will
    Jobs Horns

    Re :/ why apple only?

    You're going to see a lot more of this because of toss pot jobbs wanting everything written specifically for the iphone.

    If this was written natively for the iphone its an entire rewrite to port to android et al, exactly what bad ol steve wants.

    I was interested in going back to an iphone with the 4g (currently on nexus one - which is v good), but with this closed garden/wall/everything approach apple are moving to they are going to be too much of an apple only place.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      WTF?

      @Will

      I don't get your response - Apple gets a really cool app first, and possibly the only platform it launches on. And your immediate response is to forego the Apple device it runs on? How is that anything but stupid on your part? You may not like "the walled garden" but outside the wall is desert and desolation - that's the whole analogy.

  4. Liam Johnson

    Poor quality

    Yuk, the colour looks really bad in that photo - I hope the rest are better.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      But good for the time...

      ...It was clearly done on one of the original Apple Macs.

  5. frank ly
    Thumb Up

    A Slice Of History

    In the lower right corner of the photo, is that a smartly dressed Sarah Bee handing out an early broadsheet edition of El Reg, with details of the latest developments in tetrode valve technology?

    Does she still have the hat?

    1. Stevie

      Oi!

      There's nowt wrong wi' valves, y' whippersnapper! Can't plug 'em in the wrong way round, can't bust 'em by viciously overdrivin' 'em.

      Y' 'ad t' work 'ard t' get t' magic smoke out o' a valve. Why, it took ninety volts t' even get some o't'buggers workin'! Ninety volts! It could tek two people just t' carry a Vidor portable radio wi' weight o' t' batteries, an' one o' them would likely get 'erniated disk!

      You try puttin' 90 volts across yer TTL or yer CMOS "silly cone chip" an see 'ow long it teks ter cook yer daft Jessie lego brick fer good.

      *And* there were no need t' tie yerself t' chassis fer fear o' static electricity neither! Most o' time, whole computer room were filled wi' static electricity an' ozone anyway.

  6. Daniel 1

    One day, no doubt...

    Some day, Google (or someone) will probably do this with the Streetview database.

    Every day reality may suck, for many of us - but just look at what a great augmented reality, we will one day make, for our decedents!

    (Assuming we're not all back to horse drawn carriages, by then, of course!)

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    @ Frank Ly

    That is the early broadsheet version of El Reg!! If you look closely, I think you can see an article about some "young bounder" named Werner Van Braun "mucking about with a rocket that he claims can carry a grenade-sized payload a stunning 10 miles!" at Peenemunde, another article on the latest vacuum tube that is "only as large as a cricket ball!" and another article bemoaning Britain's procurement of more battleships when everyone knows that the next war will be fought with rigid airships!!

    If only those in power had listened, but alas, true greatness is never appreciated in its own time!!

  8. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    VR goggles?

    If we could port this to something that supported VR goggles then we could enable readers of the Daily Fail to walk around seeing everything as 1950.

    1. sandman

      Wrong way round

      Daily Mail readers already interpret everything they see through inbuilt 1950s mental filters. The VR goggles would have to forcibly inject 21st century reality, a much more difficult task which would probably need reinforcing with psychoactive drugs.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Halo

    Flash?

    The linked site is done in Flash. Oh, the irony.

  10. Adrian Esdaile
    Coat

    Piccadilly?

    Swanky! I thought El Reg came from a rusty WW2 era bomb shelter just down the road from the Red Rover.

    Alas, I find out that it's just another oak-paneled, deep-leather-chaired, green velvet-lined Victorian drawing room filled with hand-bar mustachioed toffs tossing back aged-75-years whiskies.

    yer, mine's the Fire-warden's overcoat. PUT THAT BLOODY LIGHT OUT!

    1. Daniel 1

      "I thought El Reg came from a rusty WW2 era bomb shelter"

      You must be thinking of The Inquirer, mate: just like The Register, only with more sick on the pavement.

  11. Herby

    Now if they had one for Cupertino

    It would just be orchards, and that was back in 1950's. Of course there wouldn't be any 280 freeway either, and DeAnza blvd would be named differently, and be only two lanes. Such is progress.

  12. YumDogfood

    Why no android version?

    Because Apple has mindshare among the public, its a recognizable 'brand'. Android phones are in competition with it, and each other. Suppliers have to promote their phones as well as Android, guess who wins the marketing war on this split?

    If they labeled the phones "GooglePhone compatible" or just "Google" (with the in/famous logo) instead of droid' then I think it would have a higher profile among the public - Google is a well known name. WTF is Android? A movie? A T800? An embarrassing SciFi sounding name?

    This is not Captain ranty, go look at http://www.androphones.com/all-android-phones.php and imagine if all of those had a little "Google" logo on the screen side of the phones (so you can't help but always see it).

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