iPod touch Locate Me feature on IPT

[BrownManUPS]

If you are at an airport for instance, can you connect to the public-but-you-have-to-pay-to-actually-surf internet and still use locate me though? Or does the internet have to be "validated"

 

[ProwlingTiger]

Steve Jobs himself said that all you need to do is be near WIFI, because WIFI spots triangulate signals. Otherwise the app would be COMPLETELY pointless.

Whether it works or not is a whole other issue I guess.

 

[Pared]

Steve Jobs himself said that all you need to do is be near WIFI, because WIFI spots triangulate signals. Otherwise the app would be COMPLETELY pointless.

Whether it works or not is a whole other issue I guess.

In case anyone is wondering, no, it does not work this way.

You need to be connected to a hotspot before it will work.

 

[evillageprowler]

Anyway I can get a refund and "return" these apps? I know $19.99 isn't a lot of money, but there's principle involved...

I've been spending the past few days trying to figure out how to get a WiFi hotspot on-the-go and on-demand. I know that I can get smartphones (that also have a wifi transceiver) running Win Mobile to use software that can turn it into a WiFi router and have my IPT and notebook connect to it.

But, that is getting expensive. The iPhone/ATT data plan is very cost-effective -- except that I don't own an iPhone (yet) and the ATT data plan prohibits tethering.

EVP

 

[ComputerMonkey]

If you are at an airport for instance, can you connect to the public-but-you-have-to-pay-to-actually-surf internet and still use locate me though? Or does the internet have to be "validated"

Nope, doesn't work. I just tried this today. You need to have a working, valid, wifi connection for the locate me feature to work.

 

[nakile]

It only works with Wi-Fi spots that have been added to Skyhook's database. They have quite a big documented but not all (obviously).

They have a coverage map showing the areas they cover.

 

[solyd]

Most WiFi routers will actually triangulate your position without connecting to it, however you need to be connected to a WiFi for the map data to download. Thus even though your iPod Touch knows its location, it cannot show you where you are since it does not store street maps all around the world.

 

[macfan881]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A93 Safari/419.3)

so a place like starbucks?

 

[hecks]

Most WiFi routers will actually triangulate your position without connecting to it, however you need to be connected to a WiFi for the map data to download. Thus even though your iPod Touch knows its location, it cannot show you where you are since it does not store street maps all around the world.

How on earth is a WiFi router supposed to 'triangulate' your position if your iPod is not communicating with it? And 'triangulate' with respect to what, and by which method of calculation? Please explain this technological marvel.

All your iPod can know is the SSID of the WiFi hotspot to which it is connected, which it checks against the map coordinates held in the (necessarily limited) online database.

 

[Grasbak]

there seems to be confusion as to wether the 'locate me' function only works if you are connected to a wifi hotspot.... i assume its a moot point. Presumably Maps only works if you are connected. I would have thought skyhook works without being connected the maps app doesnt work anyway!

then i dont have a touch (yet, due in a couple of days) so i could be totally wrong!