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Digging Deeper Into Macworld 2008's iPhone / iPod News
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2008-01-16 08:19:30
An integrated GPS was perhaps the most lamented "missing feature" from the iPhone, upon launch. At yesterday's keynote, Steve Jobs announced that iPhone and iPod touch users would be getting the next best thing: simulated GPS capabilities by way of triangulation. And while the integration of Google's new "My Location" service was expected, Apple went one better. MacRumors provides some background.While some had speculated that Apple would simply be incorporating Google's recently announced location services into the new software, Apple has actually used a hybrid technology that uses both Google's data (using cellular triangulation) and data from Skyhook Wireless (using a database of known Wi-Fi hotspot locations) to pinpoint the location. This enables the location feature to be used on the iPod touch, which cannot use Google's service due to lack of cellular capabilities, but can utilize Skyhook's Wi-Fi database. See the original article for a look at Apple's reasoning behind charging for the iPod touch update while the iPhone update can be had for free.
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