My post over all were not stupid, sprint is now probably paying to use those towers that they sold........ And also them holding onto nextel is wasting money they are making stupid decisions which will decrease their services in the long run. Right now people are just counting down till bankruptcy. And how possibly are they continue to be a mature service provider if they are selling their towers either which way they are decreasing in size. And also sprint service is HORRIBLE my sister and other people on that retched service never received phone calls that were made to the phone.
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doubts about voice turn by turn GPS
- Thread starter wreckshop
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My post over all were not stupid, sprint is now probably paying to use those towers that they sold........ And also them holding onto nextel is wasting money they are making stupid decisions which will decrease their services in the long run. Right now people are just counting down till bankruptcy. And how possibly are they continue to be a mature service provider if they are selling their towers either which way they are decreasing in size. And also sprint service is HORRIBLE my sister and other people on that retched service never received phone calls that were made to the phone.
IF the app store allows it. I have a feeling that somehow vendors who make the standalone units will somehow nerf their iphone application, otherwise it would cannibalize sales of the standalone units.
Yes, Sprint is leasing them back. However, they now have a lot of cash freed up to let them do other things. This is not an uncommon business practice and doesn't mean they are making a stupid decision. It also does not mean they will be decreasing their services or size. And as I said earlier, just because your sister can't get her phone to receive phone calls doesn't mean that Sprint has bad service in general....could be just her phone or her location. For years Verizon sucked inside the office of my last job (but other carriers worked). AT&T sucks in my current office and Church. It's just the way things are.
Although you are right about one thing, they are on the bankruptcy watchlist.
TomTom's PDA application has traditionally been fairly pricy.
If TomTom can come out with iPhone software that is as good as or better than their current dedicated units, and charge an appropriate amount for it ($200-$300) I don't see why they would care about canabalizing their other sales.
#1 iPhone users will still represent a tiny percentage of their market.
#2 Without the costly hardware and distribution overhead the profit margin on the software sales would be much higher than the hardware sales. I'd think they'd even prefer to have more customers buying the software version.
Think about this:
If I have a pool of 100 potential customers, lets say 5 of them own iPhones. Lets further say that I make $5 of profit for each hardware unit and $8 of profit for each hardware sale.
The 5 iPhone users are going to buy a GPS of some sort... either hardware or software. Having a TomTom Application improves the odds they'll buy from us... either they buy the hardware, or they buy the software but so long as they don't buy Garmin I'm happy.
Assuming the TomTom Buyer only buys one unit (hardware or software) from me, I'd prefer they buy the software... because it has a higher profit margin. So... GPS vendors would be Stupid to nerf their products.
That's pretty stupid. Why don't they just make the iphone know that once you use the GPS, do not go to sleep
it's not even hard to do that ...Ya'll might want to wait and see what the 2.1 update has to bring before droning on about firmware limitations and shortcomings as if this is the way it will always be. I can't imagine TomTom would settle for the current half-assed GPS support and things like the screen turning off when a real GPS app is running.
What a load of rubbish.......
Googlemaps is the weak link at the moment on the Iphone. The chipset is actually a very good chipset.
The example I can give you is that I had the same problem with blackberry maps and goodlemaps on that yet telenav tracked me really quickly an effeciently.
Yep, I'll second that. As usual, everyone judges how good the GPS is while sitting at their desk using google maps which is worthless trash. It was worthless trash on my Sprint Touch, it was worthless trash on the BB 8800 and it's worthless trash on the iPhone. Telenav, on the other hand, did a fabulous job with the same hardware on the Touch and the 8800, TomTom did a good job on the Touch and I have little doubt a "real" GPS app will do a fine job on the iPhone. My only question is how much it'll cost. Should be fun to read all the bitching and complaining about that.
today I was tracking myself while driving, and when I stopped at a red light, the blue dot which shows my location kept going for half a block, then reversed course and came back to the position where I was supposed to be. This was after the map was completely rendered onscreen, so I doubt it has anything to do with googlemaps. I bet the iphone GPS cannot track accurately with just satellites and requires some sort of additional data from the cell towers because I noticed everytime it tracks erratically, I'm either on edge or have a poor 3G connection.
This may be true and again backs what I've been saying all along. A-GPS requires the carriers servers to crunch the data. I think the holdup may be a bit of AT&T getting their act together.
Anybody trying this stuff on an unlocked iPhone on T-Mobile?
I think I've gotten to the bottom of the GPS thing. I've been playing with it every day on the way home in the carpool, and I've got some theories that I think are pretty close to what's going on.
So here's what I think I've figured out:
We all know that AGPS is assisted GPS which uses the cell towers and GPS both. I think one of the modes that AGPS uses (maybe the only/main one?) is to mainly use the cell towers and only break out the big guns (GPS) when needed. Using it this way saves alot of battery. What I think is happening here is that the maps program (or the firmware, not sure who is to blame) isn't breaking out the big guns often enough. Probably to save battery.
If you play with the maps program often, you might notice that sometimes you are shown as a blue dot with a transparent blue circle area around the blue dot that varies in diameter. I believe this is the uncertainty of your position. Now, you may also notice that sometimes, there is NO transparent blue circle area around you whatsoever. For me, when that transparent circle is NOT there, my position is incredibly accurate. We're talking probably less than 10 feet. The problem is that this situation VERY rarely occurs. I almost always have the transparent circle around my blue dot. And this uncertainty circle grows and shrinks constantly. (Possibly what is happening is that as soon as the circle gets *too* big, it turns the gps on for a second to readjust, which lowers the circles diameter, then it quickly turns gps back off).
I think that the transparent circle is an indication that the GPS chip is (mostly?) off and that your location is being tracked mostly with cell towers (or another means), hence the uncertainty. I think they try to keep the gps off as much as possible (until your uncertainty error gets too high) so that they can save battery.
I'm guessing this is entirely a software issue and that they could write the firmware/software to keep the gps on more often, or all the time, and greatly improve the accuracy of your position (at the expense of your battery). I'm thinking we might see some changes in upcoming firmware to improve the way the AGPS is currently implemented, and I'm guessing that the turn-by-turn programs will command the GPS chip on all the time (or at least *most* of the time) for accurate positioning.
This is all theory, but I don't think I'm too far off.
So here's what I think I've figured out:
We all know that AGPS is assisted GPS which uses the cell towers and GPS both. I think one of the modes that AGPS uses (maybe the only/main one?) is to mainly use the cell towers and only break out the big guns (GPS) when needed. Using it this way saves alot of battery. What I think is happening here is that the maps program (or the firmware, not sure who is to blame) isn't breaking out the big guns often enough. Probably to save battery.
If you play with the maps program often, you might notice that sometimes you are shown as a blue dot with a transparent blue circle area around the blue dot that varies in diameter. I believe this is the uncertainty of your position. Now, you may also notice that sometimes, there is NO transparent blue circle area around you whatsoever. For me, when that transparent circle is NOT there, my position is incredibly accurate. We're talking probably less than 10 feet. The problem is that this situation VERY rarely occurs. I almost always have the transparent circle around my blue dot. And this uncertainty circle grows and shrinks constantly. (Possibly what is happening is that as soon as the circle gets *too* big, it turns the gps on for a second to readjust, which lowers the circles diameter, then it quickly turns gps back off).
I think that the transparent circle is an indication that the GPS chip is (mostly?) off and that your location is being tracked mostly with cell towers (or another means), hence the uncertainty. I think they try to keep the gps off as much as possible (until your uncertainty error gets too high) so that they can save battery.
I'm guessing this is entirely a software issue and that they could write the firmware/software to keep the gps on more often, or all the time, and greatly improve the accuracy of your position (at the expense of your battery). I'm thinking we might see some changes in upcoming firmware to improve the way the AGPS is currently implemented, and I'm guessing that the turn-by-turn programs will command the GPS chip on all the time (or at least *most* of the time) for accurate positioning.
This is all theory, but I don't think I'm too far off.
markgamber
gmm was terrible on my bbery 8800. However about 3 months ago I switched (some would say downgraded) to a Curve. I took the opportunity to install the new version of GMM. It is WORLDS better than the previous version.
If I set the backlight on continuous it will track my course perfectly and show turn by turn directions as needed. Agreed, not as good as a real nav software package, but definitely better than before.
Don
gmm was terrible on my bbery 8800. However about 3 months ago I switched (some would say downgraded) to a Curve. I took the opportunity to install the new version of GMM. It is WORLDS better than the previous version.
If I set the backlight on continuous it will track my course perfectly and show turn by turn directions as needed. Agreed, not as good as a real nav software package, but definitely better than before.
Don
Dude, I'm sorry to break it to you but I'm pretty sure that you're just about infinity % wrong.
I'm no GPS programmer/physicist so I might be wrong here... but here is your answer....
All GPS Satellites send out a signal.. your iphone picks up a bunch of signals (as many as it can) and uses them to triangulate your position... I'm pretty sure you need atleast 3 to accurately (tri)angulate anything..
As far as your gps system is concerned you could be anywhere in the world so it takes some time for it to figure out where you are.
The A in A-GPS is your phone using the cell towers/wifi hotspots in order narrow your location down to a few miles and take some of the guesswork/processing time away from the gps software.
the whole turning on and off the gps chip doesn't make sense to me... I'm guessing the gps antenna/chip does not suck up tremendous amounts of power... I'm making that assumption because my crappy mio 310x gps unit in my car can run on battery for 2 hours and it weighs quite a bit less than the iphone *likely due to a smaller battery*
anyway.. don't want to go on and on.. I think you're right about 1 thing. The transparent circle is the area of uncertainty. To fix that make sure you have a line of site to the sky...
ok enough rambling.. hopefully somebody doesn't make me look silly!
P.S. a quick and easy way to test your theory would be to grab a first generation iphone and check to see how accurate its location services are... I'm pretty sure cell towers will still give you the 1/2 mile diameter circle and not pinpoint your location...
The A in A-GPS is your phone asking a server, either the carrier's or otherwise, for assistance in starting up and getting a location quickly.
The server assistance consists of info on which sats are in view (and working) and their exact orbits for the next few hours. This allows the GPS to start listening to the right ones and get a position within seconds, instead of taking up to several minutes or more, to search for and download the same info from the satellites on its own.
Yeah, it was a lot better on my WinMo phone, also, but it's still pretty much worthless. If you can't reasonably use it while driving, what good is it? Well, that's my opinion, anyway.
As to the original subject, I was positive we'd eventually see voice directions in a GPS app on the iPhone but now I'm not so sure. After the NetShare debacle, showing Apple/AT&T will do anything to anyone for any reason....or no reason whatsoever...I don't think anything is a "given" on this phone anymore. Not GPS, not Slingplayer, not any other browser, absolutely nothing. If I wasn't coding for it, I'd toss it right now. But since I can't, I bought a Tilt to be my full time phone until such time that Apple/AT&T put away the jackboots, grow up and act like real companies.
Looks like the only given is games .. but make sure you don't make anything that too closely resembles what the major developers are making, or else.
Correct.
The GPS chip DOES use alot of power, so it is very advantageous to use it as little as possible.
My theory is only a theory, but I still wouldn't be surprised if they are not keeping the gps chip on 100% of the time.
Yeah I doubt the 1st gen would give you much better accuracy than that (I've never used one), but that still wouldn't test my theory. My theory is that the maps app on the 3g is using that 1/2 mile radius initially, turning on the gps, grabbing a quick fix, then turning off the gps for a bit (either time based or it analyzes the estimated position movement from your cell tower data) and turns it back on when it thinks your position error has become too high.
Now, I haven't worked with GPS too much, but I'm guessing that this would be possible. Basically, the original iphone can estimate your location using the cell towers. I believe it uses some sort of time of flight to the towers, but I'm not positive. Let's just assume it is a TOF based approach because how it gets the location data from the towers is irrelevant. So, the original iphone has to take a guess at your location based on the TOF to (probably 3) towers. Then, it can estimate movement by how the TOF data changes as you move. This is how the 1st gen works. Now, imagine if once it estimated your location originally, you had a GPS on to correct the positioning error (as in the 3g phone) - you could know exactly how "off" your TOF data is. Once you know the error in the TOF data, you can make the appropriate tweaks to this TOF data, then, you can turn off the GPS and use the corrected TOF data to track your position. The position information won't be as accurate as GPS on all the time (and will get worse with time, especially as you move) but it will save lots of battery by having the GPS chip off. After a certain amount of time, or after some analysis of the TOF data (and error estimation) the GPS could be turned back on to readjust the TOF error and then can be turned back off. I think that doing this is one of the neat features of AGPS, but again, I'm not an expert and this is really only a theory. In theory, I think a method like this can be used to save battery and still provide relatively accurate position data, but I have no idea if the iphone is definitely using the AGPS in this way for the maps app.
is this a joke? how could anyone think a gps unit could tell which way you're FACING?
obviously the direction you're moving in would be considered FORWARD to the gps system. if you really think that by holding a gps in your hand and sitting in your car idle that it can magically know which way you're facing then you really got to work out your logic skills.
obviously the direction you're moving in would be considered FORWARD to the gps system. if you really think that by holding a gps in your hand and sitting in your car idle that it can magically know which way you're facing then you really got to work out your logic skills.
couldn't read every post in the thread, but i just wanted to dispel any rumors about the gps not being accurate enough or fast enough to do turn by turn, i was testing it all weekend and the damn thing tracked me perfectly, it didn't lose my location and was very accurate as i was driving around, always had my exact position
i personally can't wait for the app from tom tom or telenav. i'll get something to mount the phone to my dash and be ready to go
i personally can't wait for the app from tom tom or telenav. i'll get something to mount the phone to my dash and be ready to go
Probably not, because the iPhone does not have a real GPS receiver inside.
The location based services are entirely driven by UMTS signal. Turn off 3G, leave a 3G coverage area, or go out into the sticks, and watch the phone have absolutely no idea where it is.
That bombshell aside, its entirely possible to have voice turn-by-turn directions, as the implementation is good enough to support speed/direction/etc. Its all software.
True. I get bad reception for my stereo in tunnels. I can't get good digital reception at my sister's flat, due to the terracing, even with a booster. yes, there will be poor GPS performance. Line of sight is good.
Why so negative? Compass plus GPS = GPS knowing which way you're facing.
www.infineon.com/cms/en/product/applications/wireless-communication/gps/hammerhead-2.html
If it is all that, and a packet of Kettle/Burts Chips, then it'll do it. The chip it uses afaik, can do without the UMTS. But yes, LBS needs data, as you'd imagine. It looks like Apple implemented it so it needs data, beyond just picking up satellites.
Will be interesting to do a head to head Nuviphone vs iPhone if some decent satnav app for the iPhone comes out. My gut feeling is there is an NDA/developing GPS storm a' brewing. (e.g. there any company dealing with GPS that's hit with effectively a PR NDA till September).
Sure it does, if you read the threads where they break down the components of the iPhone they identified the Infineon Hammerhead II PMB 2525 as the GPS receiver installed