Syber News

It had to be a tough decision for Microsoft, as the iPhone definitely competes against Microsoft's Windows Mobile OS, but you can't deny popularity. So, on Saturday night, Microsoft's Live Labs quietly rolled out its first iPhone App.

Seadragon Mobile is free, but it's really a demo of Seadragon photo technology. Seadragon is a core technology already in some of Microsoft's products, such as Photosynth and DeepZoom in Silverlight.

But no Windows Mobile version, and an iPhone version? Some Microsoft heads might have exploded over that thought. But as Alex Daley, group product manager for Microsoft Live Labs, told TechFlash:

"The iPhone is the most widely distributed phone with a (graphics processing unit). Most phones out today don’t have accelerated graphics in them The iPhone does and so it enabled us to do something that has been previously difficult to do. I couldn’t just pick up a Blackberry or a Nokia off the shelf and build Seadragon for it without GPU support."

Curious? Here's how Microsoft describes the app:

Get the goodness of Seadragon on your iPhone!

Browse large quantities of high-resolution imagery smoothly and quickly with a flick or a pinch. Explore massive galaxies, pore over maps, or flip through collections of photographs, all over the air. You can also add your own photos or browse those already available on Photosynth.com.

FEATURES:
- View thousands of images over the air
- Quickly view massive gigapixel images
- Explore Photosynth collections in 2D, including your own
- Add your own PhotoZoom / Deep Zoom Composer content
- Subscribe to Deep Zoom RSS feeds

Released as a tech preview, Seadragon Mobile is designed to show off the 'what if?' of mobile user experiences. Expect more cool stuff from Live Labs in the future at http://livelabs.com.

Lemme tell you, it's pretty cool. You can download it from the App Store, as I said, for free, here.