[Geowanking] iPhone Geolocating technology?

[Jim Youll]

And that's not going to change as long as...

- 1. the laws of physics aren't upended. in my experience GPS  
receivers need a lot of time to lock and settle, and they'll always  
be susceptible to urban canyons, foliage, and buildings. The carriers  
can't meet E911 requirements doing pure GPS, considering all the  
places phones have voice service but no access to satellite GPS, such  
as in purses, backpacks, vehicles, buildings, and basically any  
situation other than standing in a field with the phone velcroed to  
your back, and a clear view of the sky, and you can stand there for a  
minute or so to let the receiver get a fresh lock on the satellites.

- 2. carriers can charge every customer for every new kind of service

- 3. phone makers build phones at the behest of carriers. It's a  
tough trade (excellent coverage in the WSJ last week -- Motorola had  
massive sales of its new phones and had to announce "bad news" to  
investors) because lately no matter how fast they build or how many  
they sell, margins are down to nothing, there's brutal competition,  
and the carriers call the shots -- build what they want, or your  
phones won't make it into the channel.


On Jan 10, 2007, at 2:18 PM, Kevin Elliott wrote:

> 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.
>