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i'm loving this feature on my iPhone

Jan 23, 08 - 11:57 am Comment from: ericdano

It's pretty darn close. A great feature for the iPhone. Who needs a real GPS?

Skyhook: Kareem Abdul Jabbar, CEO

Jan 23, 08 - 11:59 am Comment from: Jamie

I'm loving this feature on my iPod!

Who would have thought, when the first iPod was released, that it would evolve into a true wireless device that can tell you your location.

An amazing device, and I'm sooo pleased I bought one.

Uh, no offense but the snippets above don't answer the question, "How does the Apple iPhone, iPod Touch use Skyhook's technology to find your location."

Seems like you should re-recap the article or change the headline.

Jan 23, 08 - 12:12 pm Comment from: Jubei

This is awesome and a welcomed addition to my iPhone and iPod Touch. I'm just worried about Skyhook becoming self aware and may start sending out those Terminators.

Jan 23, 08 - 12:13 pm Comment from: ron

Why is it, that for the past few years, no-one knows where they are or where they're going?

No match for a true GPS system with voice and turn by turn directions.

There is no WiFi in the deserts of Cupertino. (plenty of smog though)

Silly Apple.

used it 3 times on iphone and its been pretty much exact every time.

'Why is it, that for the past few years, no-one knows where they are or where they're going?'

Brain damage from cell phone usage.

@Old Mac Man

True.. not nearly as accurate as a real GPS, but it also does not have a lot of the downsides:

1) Does not use a lot of battery power
2) Works inside buildings, and among tall buildings (actually works better in a large city..)
3) No need to "find satilites" so it works quickly from a cold start.

Actually I want a hybrid device like that. One that an use wifi and cell towers for location, but one that can also use a GPS when reliable wifi, or cell phone signals don't cut it.

Where is the bluetooth gps receiver for the iPhone anyways?

Jan 23, 08 - 12:43 pm Comment from: richard Cassidy

It's pretty sweet in the city, but out and about where I live near Bath in the UK it's pants - often many,many miles out!!

Read the article again. You will see that it describes how is uses WiFi Hotspot triangulation to locate your position. They are adding more and more spots to their database everyday. Maybe you should check your facts before posting anything.

It's not a GPS replacement, it's convenient to get you near your actual location, then you drop a pin where you really are, and then do a search for directions.

While it doesn't have a voice or live update, it does give traffic conditions on major highways, which you have to pay a subscription fee to get from GPS. It's invaluable to me to get thru NYC.

Jan 23, 08 - 12:53 pm Comment from: Jocko Flocko

I don't think that turn-by-turn directions on a GPS are really all that useful for daily commuters. I go to work and go home in the same general direction every day. If I want to avoid traffic and maybe take a different route, the iPhone's traffic is good enough for me - and its pretty accurate most of the time. For those times when I need to go somewhere off my normal routes, the new "locate me" function is good enough - and it doesn't cost $200+ for a dedicated GPS unit that I'd hardly ever need every day.

It's a cover while waiting for the next generation of stupidly low power requirement chips.

The iPhone of 2010 will be blow people's minds, while Microsoft and it's lackeys will trumpet the fact they may have a 2007 bad iPhone copy in 2011.

It will be called the "Zhone", and it will have a touch interface consisting of a keyboard with fixed icons for apps. And it will come with a USB keyboard for data entry. It will sync with the Big Ass Table to let you know at all times that you are a dumbass for buying anything but mice from Microsoft.

Jan 23, 08 - 01:08 pm Comment from: Jubei

This is more useful to me than those GPS systems. I've tried TomTom. What a PITA. Not only does it consistently direct you with the most inefficient route, the interface is convoluted with useless added junk when all you need is exactly what iPhone/Touch/GoogleMap/Skyhook interface provides. Usability wise, its Apples way all the way.

Jan 23, 08 - 01:09 pm Comment from: Jim - TIV

I like the feature... but it doesn't show me that close. The bullseye is usually about 2 - 3 miles to the west of my actual location. Even when I was at the apple store in Mission Viejo the other day, using their wifi hotspot, it showed me west and the store wasn't even in the circle.

I don't want to be standing in that bull's-eye! Who knows what is being aimed at it!

An advantage over the GPS in my 2007 car is that the data is several years old. On my iPhone I can find much newer points of interests and addresses. I have found that just using cell towers method in southern Santa Clara county it locates me within a thousand feet or so. Easy to move the pin and quickly get routing. Much faster than my car GPS. Maps is the best feature on the phone in my opinion.

Jan 23, 08 - 01:42 pm Comment from: iWill

Although I've had mixed results with this first version, it's accurate as long as it can find a signal. More so on WiFi than Edge.

Truly the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy!

Jan 23, 08 - 01:43 pm Comment from: Ampar

Some people need decades to figure out where they are.

"I was raised in the west. The west of Texas. It's pretty close to California. In more ways than Washington, D.C., is close to California."

- George W. Bush in Los Angeles as quoted by the Los Angeles Times, April 8, 2000.

The real advantage of Maps is the always up-to-date maps of Google. I bought a Palm Zire with TomTom about 2 years ago. While it was nice, TomTom changed their software so I couldn't upgrade the Palm, AND I couldn't even buy new maps. If I wanted new maps, they had to be bought, and that was just a yearly software upgrade. My home never appeared on my GPS, even though the streets had been in 2 years before I bought my Zire. So if you're going to a newer area of town, you're on your own.

Google's maps are MUCH more up to date than a fixed system like TomTom, and the accuracy is close enough. If you know approximately where you are, you can get directions to where you're going. Isn't that what we all really want, anyway?

The other advantage of the iPhone's Maps is that you actually pay attention to the route when you're driving. Too many times with my TomTom I would simply turn where I was told, and later realize that I didn't really watch how I arrived at my location (landmarks, street names, etc.). So I was dependent upon the TomTom to get me back to the same location even though I'd been there before.

Jan 23, 08 - 02:01 pm Comment from: Mr. Peabody

I don't know much about GPS, but aren't we missing some basic information without GPS? Not to mention that with a GPS I can go anywhere on the planet, right now, that is not shielded from satellite communications, and more or less instantly know where I am within a few feet (as opposed to a few hundred feet), and I can see all of that information (including the satellites that I'm tracking) on my display.

As I say, I really don't know, but the technology seems like a really watered-down kind of tracking compared to the existing GPS technology and infrastructure.

Jan 23, 08 - 02:30 pm Comment from: zmarc

I live near Portland, Oregon, and I just saw Skyhook advertising on Craigslist for people to drive around the city and map WiFi signals. Very interesting. $16/hour, too, just to drive around (they give you a scanner that records everything). Kinda neat to see their name right after hearing Steve Jobs talk about them!

Jan 23, 08 - 03:09 pm Comment from: Mr. Peabody

I guess the question I failed to ask in my previous post is: Why not GPS? Undoubtedly power consumption has a measurable effect on that decision, is that it, or are there other significant issues.

"A map displays a bull's-eye that's centered on the user's location"

Arg, more "I saw a screenshot and made up my own idea about how it works" pop journalism.

If it were always centered on your location, it could be a simple point instead of a "bull's-eye" or, more accurately, a radius.

The whole reason for the big circle is that the iPhone can only pinpoint you to SOMEWHERE within that area - it may be the center, which is its best guess, or it may not.

...for people to drive around the city and map WiFi signals. Very interesting. $16/hour...

I hope the job also includes gas, oil maintenance and depreciation of one's vehicle from all the mileage.

Don't fall for that one kids, despite how tempting the $16 hour might be.

Another dumb trick buisnesses pull is offering a average wage office job, and then one having to buy expensive office type clothes (and their cleaning bills) in order to "fit in".

One winds up making less money in the end than if they got a low wage job that didn't require a vehicle or fancy clothes.

Think of maximizing your bottom line every week, then live on less than half of that and save the other half.

Once one gets enough money, it smooths all bumps life tends to give. Once one gets plenty of money, it makes money all on it's own, properly invested of course.

My twenties were the hardest times of my life.

@@Shogun

Sorry but "how" is different than "what".

What: Uses wifi to triangulate your position.

How: ??? My question is how does it use wifi to triiangulate? Obviously wifi has a pretty limited Dane when you're. Omparing to the size of a city...

So what does it do? Presumably you're never getting three wifi signals all at once. So is it remembering them? And if so, how does that help with triangulating? Or maybe wifi goes much furhed than its useful distance?

Seriously, this article snip just says the what. I'd like to know what's going on behind the scenes to make this work.

ouch. iPhone isn't totally keeping up, is it?

"limited range when comparing..."

Hey, no biggie, by the way. I'd just like to understand better how you can triangulate without three signals... Or maybe at every moment in the city you do have at least three wifi signals?

Whatever. Like I said, no biggie.

I just read in USA Today the how: wifi sends out signals once a second that go far and wide. This is how wifi detectors work (I'd forgotten about them). So the skyhook has mapped all the wifis in an area by driving around and getting a fix on all the lighthouses. The Touch and iPhone are able to receive these lighthouse pings, and thus, even if you're way too far from a wifi to actually use it for data, you can still detect it and find your position...

That's what an article about "how" should say!