IPhone and GPS
The IPhone’s built in mapping service is a frequently used function that’s great at finding business locations. One favorite location is Norms Ale House in Fremont, Wa., but that’s a bit off topic.
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The next IPhone release, version 1.1.3, will include a new mapping service designed to show the phone’s current location by triangulating against cell phone towers. See Silicon.com and MacWorld for more.
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If the revised service works as well as current IPhone maps, my friends with dedicated GPS’s may be jealous. Their GPS’s don’t take phone calls.
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Feb 26, 2008: iPhone version 1.1.3 is installed and Google maps are now equipped with positioning software from Navizon. The map screen has a new button in the lower left corner. Press it and the display will update with a blue circle approximating the position of the iPhone. It takes a few seconds for the circle to appear. I’ve tested the locator while moving around Seattle and found it’s reasonably accurate. In the picture below, the actual position of the phone is the point where 41st Street meets the blue locator circle. I guess you could say it’s accurate to a city block.
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Locator accuracy seems to vary from area to area. In some spots the circle gets bigger and ranges from one to maybe ten city blocks. I’ve not used the locator in areas with fewer cell towers but suspect accuracy deceases as the phone moves further away from areas with lots of cell towers.
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So far, I like the locator feature. While moving through unfamiliar territory, it’s handy to press a button and see my current location. And, it appears that a newer version of the software, Navizon version 2.0, adds a Slider mode which updates the position every ten seconds. It will be nice when version 2.0 is availible from Apple.
GPS » IPhone and GPS said,
January 27, 2008 @ 9:52 am
[...] Here’s another interesting post I read today by Tony [...]
IPhone Cafe » Blog Archive » Version 1.1.3 Good and Bad said,
March 1, 2008 @ 4:53 am
[...] GPS-Like Maps. Google maps has a new button in the lower left corner. Push it and iPhone displays a map with the phone’s current position. It doesn’t use satelites so it’s not as accurate as a GPS; but it is nifty and could be useful. It would be even better if the locator could be set to run automatically every minute or so. Instead, the button has to be pushed to update the position. See iPhone and GPS for more. [...]