iPhone's "Location" feature helps explain open cell platforms

Wireless technology knowitall Glenn Fleishman says,

I've been trying for months now to explain the bottom-to-top nature of what an open cell platform running on an open network would look like. Thanks to Apple, I can now use the iPhone location feature, which triangulates on both cell towers and Wi-Fi access points to produce geographical coordinates, to break out the chain of physical hardware up to applications and services that could be opened up under Android or other open phones and networks.

Link.

[#1 posted by jwb , January 22, 2008 3:51 PM]

This is the kind of tech-wanking blog entry you get when you have an iPhone and a Mac and don't step outside the walled garden much. The Blackberry and several other models of phones were already doing cell tower geolocation long before Apple bothered to slap it on their iPhone. If anything, the article should be about how you get the shaft when you buy into the Apple/AT&T locked system, and you become accustomed to being glad that you get features at all. Meanwhile people using authentic open platforms have had these features for eons.

[#2 posted by catcubed , January 22, 2008 4:14 PM]

Another post praising the panacea of openness and stressing functionality and features while ignoring user interface. I love to geek out too but I like my iPhone because of the fact that I don't have to install new components and add drivers and software that may or may not have a UI that is easy to use without requiring a manual or a tech support forum.

[#3 posted by nex , January 22, 2008 4:26 PM]

Are WiFi hotspots really used for triangulation? (As opposed to just compiling a list of hotspots from which you get a signal.) I have no idea where to get such info, so if someone would linkslap me, I'd be most grateful.

[#4 posted by daveon , January 22, 2008 4:50 PM]

My heart sinks when I read this sort of thing. This is not new technology nor has it got anything to do with "open cell platforms" on "open networks" - referencing people who don't grasp the technology doesn't help.

Besides which, the iPhone is currently anything but open unless you take your chances with opening it up.

This is not triangulation, at least it's not network triangulation on the cell towers. Looks like it's Cell Tower location with triangulation on the Skyhook service which the phone can have a modicum of control over - of course, this assumes the Skyhook service works. I'm a tad skeptical about that after reading their website myself.

This stuff works on any phone platform that can run applications and you can already write applications for it. You don't need more openness. You just need to do it.

[#5 posted by shai_berger , January 22, 2008 9:52 PM]

NEX: Yes, WiFi hotspots can be used for getting your location. You triangulate based on signal strength.

This approach was actually pioneered a few years ago by a company called Navizon, which offers a mobile app that you can download to a large variety of smart phones. They released an iPhone app a few months ago, only to see it disabled by a firmware updated. And now Apple has their own version of the service.

A few more details here: http://www.shaiberger.com/?p=55.

[#6 posted by daveon , January 22, 2008 9:55 PM]

Yes, WiFi hotspots can be used for getting your location. You triangulate based on signal strength.

Yes... but these assumes that the WiFi hotspots looked at have some form of location attached to them. It wouldn't, for example, work all that well in my apartment building I assume?

[#7 posted by luistxo , January 23, 2008 1:16 AM]

The Jaiku client app for some Nokias does celltagging. That's not triangulation but capturing just the IDs of the celltower used for communication. Yet, it's a powerful tool for geolocation.

Whenever a user sends a jaiku with that, cell IDs are transmitted. If those IDs are already identified in Jaiku's database, city and neighboorhood can be inferred (no lat-lon so far in Jaiku's processes, not visible in their API, at least, see http://eibar.org/blogak/luistxo/en/archive/2007/10/11/geodata-in-twitter-s-and-jaiku-s-apis ). If the cell ID is not in the database, the user can also add neighboorhood and city tags on his/her own, and from that moment, any Jaiku user going around that point will be located to the place.

Google bought Jaiku last year. See a recent pic in Flickr by Jaiku's founder Jyri Engestrom chatting with Google's bosses: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jyri/2198675172/ That photo was transmitted with that Nokia's Jaiku app. See the Flickr machine-tags: those are the cell Id's, the other locative tags (Mt. View etc...) were automatically assigned.

[#8 posted by Davy , January 23, 2008 8:51 AM]

On my iPhone cell-tower triangulation using Navizon approximates my location within 500 ft. Whereas the WiFi location is off by thousands of miles frequently and accurate very occasionally.

I don't get the impression that both Wifi and Edge signals are used simultaneously to pinpoint location, but one or the other.

@#1 -- I don't see how any mobile phone platform outside of OpenMoko is truly open. With the exception of the latest firmwared iPhones, installing third party apps is an exercise in following a simple tutorial.

[#9 posted by nex , January 24, 2008 3:44 AM]

Thanks, Shai! Meanwhile I've seen other sources confirming that iPhones using Skyhook evaluate signal strength; Skyhook claim an accuracy of 20m, which is quite impressive when it works.

Maybe the huge discrepancies noticed by Davy are due to nasty people like me who take their hotspot with them when they travel? However, ideally only the iPod Touch would fall into such a trap; an iPhone could do sanity checks against cell location data. *shrugs*