PointAbout just announced today that it has extended the functionality of the iPhone’s accelerometer to the web.

This means that clients who use PointAbout to distribute their web applications as native iPhone applications will have access to the accelerometer functionality of the phone. (To learn more about private-labeling PointAbout’s springboard for your mobile website click here.)

This is quite significant because the accelerometer information is not typically accessible to websites. However, with PointAbout acting as the “bridge” between the phone itself and the web, clients are now able to do all types of innovative things, such as:

- determine where the user is physically standing (latitude & longitude, or we can reverse-geocode to the nearest physical mailing address)

- determine the unique device ID of the phone (so you’ll know when a phone is returning to your site after having been away; this can also be used as log-in credentials)

- phone vibration feature; allows you to make the phone vibrate when certain actions are taken by the user

- accelerometer functionality, as shown in the video above, from the user’s phone to your website, wrapped with PointAbout’s thin-client springboard!