These days I find myself missing my GPS-enabled services from Verizon Wireless. Back in late June, I played into the hype, throwing my Samsung u740 to the side for the iPhone. I loved having this location-aware device always sitting right by my side, helping me find my nearest Starbucks or getting me back on track when lost in a new city. Now with AT&T, I am treated to hundred-page bills and the need to know where I am when I want to find things around me, given the widely-publicized omission of GPS from the gadget of the century.
However I still hold out a glimmer of hope that LBS will come to my first generation iPhone - with companies like Skyhook Wireless taking an alternative approach to offering location-based services through Wi-Fi. Skyhook has gone to great strides to map out the location of public and private Wi-Fi networks across the United States and enables websites to offer location-aware services through its technology and database. Back in May, Skyhook announced support of its technology in Mac OS X. Since the iPhone runs a version of Mac OS X and contains built-in Wi-FI, could we see Skyhook-powered Wi-Fi location-based services running on the iPhone in the future?? I hope so...
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Holding out hope for LBS on my first-gen iPhone...
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4 comments:
Hey Chris, have you tried to compare skyhook vs your old Verizon wireless gps for accuracy? Just curious how it compared in somewhere like NYC. I had mixed results (sometimes off by a block or two) when I was using the Loki toolbar on my pc and they can't currently support Microsoft Vista OS so haven't been able to play with it much.
Skyhook's results are mixed. Some times it puts me right on the dot and other times Loki showed me in Dallas, TX and NJ within 3 blocks in Silicon Valley (my PC was connected using an EDGE card)
AT&T should be able to provide user location within 300-500m, without GPS, using base station triangulation - their phones already have this for E-911 Phase I compliance. They just need to open it up to 3rd party apps.
Ben - Wi-Fi location rivals the accuracy of A-GPS in places with dense Wi-Fi coverage and urban canyon environments (such as midtown Manhattan). A-GPS is certainly much more accurate as you move out into suburban and rural areas with open sky and less Wi-Fi coverage.
techie_guy - I agree that the results are mixed. They'll only give you an accurate fix if you are within range of Wi-Fi signals. Since you were connected via EDGE, there may have been instances where Loki did not detect Wi-FI- in that case they fall back to IP address resolution, which is often inaccurate. Re: triangulation - AT&T uses a technology called U-TDOA for E911 compliance and from what I've heard from sources, there no plans to open this up for commercial apps any time soon. They're pushing forward with A-GPS as their approach for commercial LBS.
Well techie_guy I think the reasons for the very wide misses is because if Loki can't get a good wi fi fix on you then it reverts back to reverse IP/whois lookup as is the standard on the web. So whomever has registered the IP address pool you're using to access the Internet will be where it defaults out to... in this case ATT? Anyone know if they use a 3rd party for this such as DigitalEnvoy? Seems suspicious that NJ and Dallas are (were) two major ATT corporate hubs, so this could be what is happening
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