[lucb1e]

That's strange, any idea how it could be able to differentiate?

My only guess is some sort of processing, like wait and see if it follows the expected acceleration pattern (moderate initial acceleration from the unexpected-to-the-user car motion, followed by a stronger acceleration in the same direction as one's hands push the phone to keep it in the same visual place) but I'd assume such lag is precisely the issue VR etc. has and makes people extra sick. By the time you've counteracted it, your brain has clearly registered that the movement is disjointed from the visual input, so then it's too late for them dots to help right?! That couldn't possibly work (or could it). Very curious how this works. Like, surely it doesn't need to be connected to a compatible car?

Edit: wait, or the camera. That would be very battery-intensive (I guess theoretically it could turn on only 1% of 1 color channel on the sensor, but I'm not aware that this is a mode that the hardware/firmware supports), but when you move it yourself, then the camera would see motion in the opposite direction as when you're unexpectedly being moved such as in a car. Still seems unlikely

[CGamesPlay]

It doesn't seem to actually differentiate at all. If I move my iPhone around on a plane (table), the dots move. If I hold in in my hand and move left/right, the dots move. If I hold it in my hand and raise/lower my arm, the dots don't move. That's actually just an integration of acceleration/gyro, and possibly combined with a simple model of how a phone is held (e.g. assume rotations happen from a point 30cm away from the bottom of the phone).

[twobitshifter]

It works in a plane, so it’s somehow able to detect the higher rate of speed, maybe by integrating, but I think it does use signals from CarPlay as well.