Xcode 6 and iOS 8 Hint at iPhone 6 Barometer & Air Pressure Sensors

According to some new information found inside Xcode 6 and iOS 8, the iPhone 6 may feature barometer & air pressure sensors to measure altitude as well as temperature and weather. As 9to5Mac points out, the latest iPhone software development kit includes updated CoreMotion APIs, which clearly show the new altitude measuring capabilities.

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Android devices such as the Galaxy Nexus already include a barometer for measuring altitude, which provides information commonly used by hikers, mountain climbers and enthusiasts. Current altitude tracking applications use the iOS Device’s existing GPS and Motion chips to track altitude, but according to developers, this newly discovered reference is a new framework that is dedicated to altitude tracking and requires new Apple hardware. 

“Developer Ortwin Gentz from FutureTap pointed us to these references, and he tested the framework on an iPhone 5s, the latest-generation of the iPhone. According to Gentz, the framework returned a “No” to indicate that the iPhone 5s does not not support the reporting of altitude changes based on this new framework. With the help of a noted developer, we wrote our own code to test the framework and we received the same not-supported-by-the-iPhone-5s result. This likely indicates that this new altitude tracking functionality is reserved for unreleased Apple devices.”

Previously, the Xcode 6 revealed that larger iPhone and iPad screen sizes may be coming this fall, with the inclusion of “resizable iPhone” and “resizable iPad” options.

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