Cycloramic app takes hands-free 360-degree imagery (Video)

WASHINGTON — Cycloramic may be the app that you never knew you needed, but suddenly it’s one of the coolest tools for your iPhone 5.

Place your iPhone upright on a smooth, flat surface – a glass table would be great – then activate the app, like this:

Cycloramic will use your iPhone’s vibrator to slowly and carefully rotate the phone with the camera engaged. The results are 180-degree or 360-degree panoramic photo images or videos, hands-free.

At a party, no one in the room would escape the revolving eye of Cycloramic. Or maybe there’s a more serious use for the app.

A real estate agent who wants to show off the fireplace in the living room and the granite countertops in the adjoining kitchen could place the Cycloramic-loaded iPhone in the center of the space, press the button in the center of the screen and let the phone spin in a circle, taking in all the surroundings.

While the $1.99 app has been around since 2012, it was recently featured on ABC’s Shark Tank, the reality TV show about potential business investors searching for the next big thing. The TV appearance earned the app’s maker, Egos Ventures, a half-million dollar investment and hundreds of thousands of downloads.

Here’s what the WTOP newsroom looks like, using the app:

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