Want to Point an iPhone at a Plane and Know its Destination? There’s an App for That!

Plane Finder AR is an app for the iPhone that uses a bit of augmented reality to overlay flight information, flight origin and destination, near any plane that the iPhone points toward.

However neat the technology may be, various customer reviews don’t lavish the app with praise, claiming the actual service rarely works in highly populated areas. One may immediately suspect this is because AT&T’s iPhone service is notorious for having poor reception in densely populated areas, and a few of the customer reviews point out they’re living in said densely populated areas, but this isn’t the case. The actual reason for the supposedly poor coverage is because the app can only detect automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) equipment, which is equipment that automatically updates and broadcasts information using a global navigation satellite system, and the only country that has nationwide ADS-B equipment is Australia, from where the customer reviews are not originating.

So, if you live in Australia or happen to know you live in a heavily ADS-B populated area and want to spy on planes from the ground, the app only costs $2.99.

(via Boing Boing)