[Geowanking] iPhone Geolocating technology?

[Kevin Elliott]

Anselm Hook wrote:
> I bet it doesn't have gps yet; articles always say that these things 
> have gps when in fact they really mean proprietary network assisted 
> positioning.
>
> The price is too high, and it is possibly too feature rich... for the 
> kind of use that I'd hope to see anyway; I want to build social place 
> apps that lots of people use...  and this is like haute couture or 
> jewelry more so than something that everybody would have.
>
> Looking at how Steve Jobs presented it, it seems like a risk for them; 
> I guess they are mitigating risk by envisioning a series of fallback 
> use-cases; if not a phone then a portable photo album; if not a photo 
> album then a way to check email; if not email then a window scraper... 
> whereas it feels like there's still a need for the sms equivalent of 
> place awareness...  like not starbuck's but place classifieds...
>
> Still; it is nice to see Apple school the other mobile smart device 
> vendors out there. Compared to the zaurus, ipaq, axim, blackjack, oqo, 
> the psp, various generic windows smartphones, nokia n800 etc; this 
> does seem more satisfying...  maybe it is just the pretty ui.

Agreed, most of the phones that are even advertised with GPS, are 
typically GPS-A, and rely on network data that is pay-per-use, or E911 
accessible only. It's too bad, because like you, I want to build 
platforms with which people can interact using their location data. I'm 
sure that's a goal of a lot of people here (as I've seen over the last 
year or so). Now if I can only get Navizon to work well without Wifi 
enabled, so I can have SOME kind of locativity.

If I have Apple pinned right, I am willing to bet that this phone is 
"haute couture" (I love your use of these words) and priced accordingly 
as a way to get themselves into the new market and subsidize the cost of 
initial innovation. If they're going to follow in their own footsteps, 
I'm sure they'll release several versions of the phone within 12 months 
of the first release, with mediocre upgrades each time. Like the 5G's of 
iPods. Financially, they can milk the market (assuming they can capture 
enough of the market), and finance "true innovation" on that line.

It's definitely the pretty UI, and the larger screen, and simplicity 
that draws most people. If Microsoft got it's act together and made 
Crossbow (The next Windows Mobile), then maybe half the other devices 
out there could compete. My Cingular 8525 is pretty sexy, but the OS 
crumbles.

Kevin