iHUDisplay lite

iHUDisplay lite is a fairly simple app which projects a car's speed, heading, and altitude onto the windshield (or any other reflective surface).

I've not done any checking into it, but at a glance it seems to use successive position updates to calculate the speed and heading. I'd guess it retrieves altitude from a server somewhere.

Speed and heading seem to be fairly accurate and reasonably close to real-time. Altitude lags a second or so.

The app sports two other indicators on its main display: a graphical indication of satellite connection status to let you know at a glance whether it's receiving GPS updates, and a speed indicator dial which is more or less unreadable when the phone is placed on the dashboard.

The main selling point of this app is that the display can be flipped mirror-image style to project from the dash to the windshield so you can see your speed and heading while driving. I found that during the day it was pretty useless, when it was getting dark that I hand to turn the brightness all the way up, and when it was dark I had to turn down the brightness so it would be less distracting.

On the subject of distraction, I found it best to position the iphone such that the display is dead center when I was looking forward. It was nice being able to check my speed and still retain peripheral vision. It took a second to focus on the numbers, but no longer than on a speedometer.

My only real gripe about the app is that the numbers are too small. Perhaps in a future release the authors will give us the option to turn off altitude (who cares?) and the tiny speed dial, and have the numeric readouts for speed and heading displayed in a much larger font. On the other hand, it was free; I'm not complaining.

The app also has settings to warn if a speed camera is nearby. I didn't get any results, but I'm also not aware of any speed cameras in my area. Assuming this works, it would be very handy for road warriors out there.

This is a nifty little app for drivers or those wanting to impress their friends in the car. Who knows, it could even help in avoiding wrecks. The concept of speed and heading displayed on the windshield seems to me to be very practical and easy to implement. I give the app a thumbs up for concept an a sideways, neutral thumb for execution.