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Posted by rod@drury.net.nz in Google at 12:47 am on Sunday, 6 April 2008
Has been upgraded recently. I was on version 1.6 and it’s now up to 2.0.3. The new version seems to be able to locate you roughly using cell towers, so works inside - just in case you don’t know where you are. Works great in Wellington
Point your mobile device to www.google.com/gmm
blog
Tried this on my BB and it responded “Sorry,Google Maps does not work on your Windows Mobile pre 2003″.
Yes - great eh?
Works VERY well overseas where there are more cell towers.
In the UK and the US it appears as accurate as GPS in the major cities. Was in London the other week and it showed me pinpoint accuracy to where I was, same in San Fran.
I think the “show you where you are” was also an upgrade of the iphone - 1.1.4 (well according to apple). Maybe they just added the button :-)
While mobile, I like maps for locating businesses, and making contact with them using the ‘call’ feature. It’s great for making enquiries, bookings or appointments especially if your less than sophisticated MS mobile contact list isn’t up to scratch. Downside is it’s only as good as the finda database records.
Also, when finding your location, I wonder if it uses signal strength to locate you and then fine tune. Eg, In wellington, my location can be 2 km out, but improves as the app is online. In my office, the improvment takes me from an oriental bay location to my exact location - 100% accurate - maybe there is a tower on top our building.
Graeme
It’s all about how MANY cell sites the phone can connect too, as opposed to just strength. One strong site doesn’t help the phone as to where it is very much, but 10 weak signals does.
Just like GPS, it uses a type of triangulation to figure out where it is. In the case of large cities there could be a dozen sites, so working in the city is going. Out in the country or even the burbs, it can be more of a “close guess”.
Richard
Dermott - just downloaded and installed it on my BB Pearl and it works fine. YMMV. Found it easier to browse to the download site from the mobile - downloaded and installed directly.
In Central Auckland (ANZ Centre), I’m about 1000 metres out in terms of location. However, in the menu there is an item “Bluetooth GPS” which looks like the usual function to pair Bluetooth devices. I assume therefore I could pair it with a navman and get a more precise location that way but not sure why one would do that and not just use the navman by itself … or maybe thats not what that function is about.
Rick, I think my BB may not work as it is an 8700. I tried my cell phone number from Rod’s link but it said invalid number. Obviously Google do not want to send an SMS to Auckland.
I can get Google Maps on my Touch but it would be nice to get it on a phone.
I noticed in the news that Garmin is bringing out a Nuviphone which has been called an iPhone killer in the middle of the year. This is an interesting twist as it will have far superior GPS info and I would have thought these days that adding a cell phone to any device was pretty modular and very easy.
It works fine on my BB Pearl. Just wondering how does google get access to privately owned cell towers to triangulate your location?
As far as I understand it, Google has been taking information fed back to it by customers with GPS enabled handsets and then matching that with the cellsite information all mobiles receive. That information lets them work up a map correlating cellsites with GPS locations and they’ve reached the point where they have enough information they can offer a location-based service without the customer needing a GPS device. Triangulation off three cellsites means they can be fairly sure where you are.
It’s not as accurate as a GPS device but it is still, apparently, pretty good.
That’s as I understand it - happy to be corrected if I’m wrong.
Cheers
Paul (not an official comment, just a comment).
It is an excellent alternative to Blackberry Maps (which is not functional).
Optimised for WAP etc means getting location to and from directions are really quick and accurate. Much easier than navigating to wises.co.nz or similar sites.
My guess on the location is that some networks broadcast a tag called CellSite ID. All sites have to be registered with spectrum licensing authorities. basic database look-up means that you can ‘guess’ the location with reasonable accuracy. In urban areas where cell density is high then you can get reasonably good resolution (100 - 200 m. Someone who lives in a rural area can prove this for us :)
Also would explain why it doesn’t work with CDMA phones as this information is not published. Long story behind that - but there is not a good reason for not doing it :)
And to PB’s point, I think this means that this isn’t triangulated as it would have to go pretty deep into the phone OS to pick this info up