Most curious onlookers are sold after a whistle-stop tour of SMS, Web and Google Maps. However some stubborn folks haughtily demand what makes ‘it so special anyway?’, so I do my solemn best to give them the personalised excuse they need to justify their inevitable purchase. Twitterific seems to be the killer app for folks on twitter (twits?) and the common craft intro to twitter video quickly converts the non-twits. Productivity obsessives (guilty) have trouble restraining themselves when they see remember the milk and reqall. Some nuts are tougher to crack.

The final trick I have up my sleeve (besides games, but that’s cheap) is PangeaVR (app-store link).

PangeaVR iPhone app displaying ‘boat house‘ panorama from panedia.com

It’s not the most snappily-named app, nor the most seductively dressed but it’s the app that’s come closest to eliciting an audible ‘wow’ from me. In short PangeaVR allows you to view immersive photographs by rubbing your finger on the touch-screen. Drag left to look left, up is up etc. Spin around, zoom in, stare at a foreign sky. See the world not as the photographer frames it, but as they saw it (there’s a big difference). Revisit the places of your youth. Take a peek at that fantasy vacation spot. Show your friends the home town you never shut up about.

PangeaVR is (amazingly) free, though I reckon that with a less imposing UI metaphor (PangeaVR’s current UI is based around an intimidatingly long list of ‘portfolios’) and a Koi Pond-like price tag, PangeaVR could be a major money spinner for Pangea software (should they choose to go that route). The coolest part about PangeaVR as it stands though is that publishing your own panoramas through the system is also free and (theoretically) within reach of anyone with a digital camera (preferably with a wide lens and a bracket head), a PC and time! Brian Greenstone and the Pangea software guys responsible for this app/system deserve major kudos for their open-handed approach.

Now I should point out that this isn’t the first time I’ve encountered panoramic photography, so my praise isn’t just that of the VR ingénue. I’ve toiled to stitch my own panoramas in the past only to have users unable to load the Quicktime/flash/java plug-in necessary to view them or confused that they must ‘click & drag’ the photo (to which they are unaccustomed) to ‘pan’ the image (some very unhelpful lingo). In the end I gave up and started outputting stitched images as static JPEGs. What makes PangeaVR worth mentioning is that it harnesses people’s natural tendency to touch screens (even when they really shouldn’t) and the ability of even the most timid digital immigrant to comprehend the ‘move the picture with your finger’ concept.

My next move is to devise a workflow for producing my own spherical panoramas without splashing out on any specialist equipment.