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Still no GPS in wifi model?

I've not dug into the specs, but since on previous versions the GPS hardware is embedded in the 3G radio circuitry it stands to reason the same is true for the third gen ipad.
 
brand said:
Really?
Click to expand...
Okay,
MOUNTAIN lion... often there's snow in mountain tops... :)

Still, I'd like to have confirmation on GPS.
Or if iPad could get GPS info from iPhone...

I'm not looking for 3rd mobile data account and my family is going to share one mifi in the future.
So it doesn't sound like a good deal to pay additional $100 for 3G/LTE, if you need only GPS...
 
A-GPS full capabilities are reserved for 4G units. Wifi only iPads will not have "real" GPS since they will not have the wireless broadband chipsets. You can still do pseudo gps since Maps will home in on your WiFi position. It won't be suitable for driving however.
 
whtrbt7 said:
A-GPS full capabilities are reserved for 4G units. Wifi only iPads will not have "real" GPS since they will not have the wireless broadband chipsets. You can still do pseudo gps since Maps will home in on your WiFi position. It won't be suitable for driving however.
Click to expand...
There's lots of "real" gps gadgets out there without cell phone chips.
Wouldn't cost much for Apple to put one chip to wifi model. There's already empty space (cell chips missing) for it...

But it seems Apple doesn't want to do this. It wouldn't be hard for them to make iPhone's location info available to iPad via bt or wifi. But they just don't...
 
I agree that Apple could have popped in a normal GPS chip possibly like a SiRFSTAR III chipset but that would also raise costs and most likely require a larger PCB design which will also cause manufacturing issues. It's not that there is "empty space" where the cellular chipset would go but rather a pre-configured cellular chipset space that they would need to backwards engineer a gps chipset. Apple doesn't waste money when it comes to production. They trim their margins very tight to maximize profit if you haven't noticed.
 
toke lahti said:
There's lots of "real" gps gadgets out there without cell phone chips.
Wouldn't cost much for Apple to put one chip to wifi model. There's already empty space (cell chips missing) for it...

But it seems Apple doesn't want to do this. It wouldn't be hard for them to make iPhone's location info available to iPad via bt or wifi. But they just don't...
Click to expand...

Obviously they could put the gps chip in the iPad. The wifi Blackberry Playbook has a GPS chip.

The combined cellular/GPS chip probably does not cost Apple more than $15 but Apple up sells the 4g/GPS device by marking up the price by $130.

The market dictates what Apple will price it at. Since millions will pay for the $130 premium Apple will continue with its pricing since the market competitors haven't made a real dent on iPad sales (not shipped but sold devices).

By the way. GPS map for boat navigation looked awesome on my friends boat last year on a trip to the Florida Keys.
 
toke lahti said:
But it seems Apple doesn't want to do this. It wouldn't be hard for them to make iPhone's location info available to iPad via bt or wifi. But they just don't...
Click to expand...

Are you sure on that last part? I thought if you were tethering your ipad to your phone it'd pull over location info every minute or so?

As to the first part, yep, doesn't seem that Apple considers GPS to be a big deal feature that must be on all devices. Guess they figure for most folks the positioning available via wifi seems to be close enough.

Here's where to share your opinion with them: http://www.apple.com/feedback/
 
deeddawg said:
Are you sure on that last part? I thought if you were tethering your ipad to your phone it'd pull over location info every minute or so?

As to the first part, yep, doesn't seem that Apple considers GPS to be a big deal feature that must be on all devices. Guess they figure for most folks the positioning available via wifi seems to be close enough.
Click to expand...
There was some talk about "location data sharing" here last year.
I never got that clarified.
IIRC, there was some speculation that when iphone's wifi-tethering is on, it will send it's location data to Skyhook and ipad would pull data from there.
Somebody said that there's no standard sharing gps data through wifi. Well, lack of standards hasn't stopped Apple before, if they just want to do something...
Positioning via wifi isn't an option when you are outside urban zone if you would like to use ipad for navigation etc...
 
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