If you can’t quite imagine what it’d look like to leap from the tallest building in Malaysia or fly over the mouth of a volcano like Mount St. Helens, consider parting with $1.99 to give yourself perspective with the 360-degree, 3D video on im360, a universal app for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.
The app features a couple hundred videos in its Online Library, which you can browse within the app, download, and view in either standard mode or even more dynamic 3D Anaglyph mode by sporting your 3D goggles (not included). Once you select a video and begin to play it, you can then navigate 360-degree, panoramic viewing features by way of your finger or device motion.
I downloaded and viewed about 10 different videos (most about 70 seconds long). Not surprisingly, the best and most entertaining videos are those that let you experience adventures you’re unlikely to do yourself (the Red Bull Malaysia base jump, for example) while clips from the De Young museum’s exterior in San Francisco, though informative, seem relatively uninspiring. Frustratingly, some of the video is also lacking quality resolution.
Still, I was totally enamored of a video that featured whales rising from and crashing to the ocean’s surface by way of a boat’s-eye-view camera. You can even pause the video and direct the 360-degree film so as not to miss, for example, a single whale on any side of the boat -- or a single cliff or snowfield as you fly over Mount St. Helens.
In the event that you’re among the adrenaline junkies who films himself skiing off cliffs or jumping from tall buildings, you can also choose and view your own 360 films using im360.
The bottom line. im360 is a fun way to glimpse adventures beyond the scope of your everyday life. If you’d like to take the next step and see what it actually feels like to jump from the tallest building in Malaysia, you’re on your own.
iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad running iOS 4.2 or later
The app does exactly what it says it does, and many of the videos accessed via the in-app library are highly entertaining.
Video resolution isn’t always up to snuff. It’d also be great to have a more extensive video library to choose from.
