iPhone To The Rescue: Car Finder Edition
By now, we should all have realized, accepted, or been told just how superior the iPhone is to everything else out on the market. It does everything you could ever want from a phone (you never really wanted MMS, did you?), but from time to time, someone thinks up another ingenious use for the "Jesus Phone." Not that Jobs and crew didn't think of these ideas first and plan for them all along, but they really wanted to let you, the everyday schlub, to feel like you helped too.
One of these particular "apps" that you can install by the grace of Jobs is the new G-Park. It's simple really, and will take advantage of the iPhone 3G's GPS functionality. Once you park your car, you simply hit the Park Me! Button and the phone logs your location. When you're ready to go home, and the cocktail haze induced at the random cultural street party won't allow you to remember where your car is, simply tap the Where did I Park button, and off you go with turn-by-turn directions.
The app will work best with the new 3G phone, but can also use the original iPhone's triangulation. But lets be honest, who's going to be caught dead with one of those year-old pieces-of-junk come Friday?
Jesse James
Posted to Hot Stuff, In Your Pocket, In the World on 8 July 2008
· Comments (5)
Other stuff like this: Car parking, GPS, iPhone app
Since I'm not switching to an AT&T plan from T-Mobile anytime soon, I'd still love to have a jailbroken, unlocked iPhone 2G with all the stuff it can do over my phone now. So, I guess I'd be caught dead! ...even if it loses me some technophile points.
*adds it to download list on launch day*
Yeah, this could be useful...
"grace of steve jobs" You mean they paid the money to purchase the SDK.
The iPhone uses aGPS, which isn't exactly true GPS. (It uses some triangulation like the old iPhone.)
Does the iPhone actually have a turn by turn GPS application? The agreement for the SDK actually forbids them.
The creator's site says Turn-By-Turn, but I'm guessing it's more of the list variety, a la Google Maps, than the voice-guided, directions-as-you-go style like Garmin, etc.
JAppi:
While you are correct that the iPhone 3G uses aGPS, it still does have "true GPS."
It can function just like any real GPS device and pinpoint your location that way, provided the conditions are right (clear signal to at least 3 satellites, download and initialisation of current satellite location data is complete, etc.)
The "assisted" part of aGPS comes in b/c starting up completely true GPS takes not only a lot of time (to acquire the satellite location data and parse it) but also a lot of battery. There also instances where "true GPS" is not possible (inside buildings, for example.)
Because of this, the iPhone relegates using the true GPS as a very last resort. Each location aware application that uses the CoreLocation framework on the iPhone 3G (the framework that gives access to the GPS features) can tell the iPhone what the priority for accurate location data is (I need a general area, or a very specific point, etc.) and CoreLocation then determines which combination of location services is needed, opting for the most battery and time efficient method to fulfill the program's request.
The iPhone 3G does indeed use triangulation for the first "location lock" just like the old iPhone, and will simply stop there if the application only needs a general area. If further resolution is needed, it will then begin the process of starting the real GPS receiver (CoreLocation is also able to retrieve the satellite location data through WiFi or 3G if available, reducing the GPS startup time.)
In the end, Apple did this because GPS is a real power and resource hog for a small device, not to mention it's not "instant on," a solution Steve Jobs wouldn't be very happy with.