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WIFI-GPS-MYWI works great

Lamonster

Lamonster

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 4, 2008
129
0
Sitting in my home in East TN and hooked up to my comcast service provider the pin drops in Staten Island NY. I went on the road yesterday and used my iphone with Mywi loaded on it and used it as my hotspot and the ipad worked just like the iphone, dropped the pin right where I was and followed me as we drove down the road. This is great for me because I travel a lot and use mapping and weather and if I'm tethered to my iphone it will give me the info I'm looking for on a much larger screen. I'm happy. :D
 
You put "MYFI" in the subject, i think you mean MyWi. MIFI is a Verizon service.
 
That said...I can't wait till a JB comes out for my firmware, as I'm itching to try this myself.
 
gwynne said:
That said...I can't wait till a JB comes out for my firmware, as I'm itching to try this myself.
Click to expand...

So how does this work? I know the iPad uses wifi to determine approximate location, but I understood that was through a central database that tracks access points' MAC addresses and their location. However with the iPhone it sounds like it uses a different mechanism. Somehow the GPS data is automatically transmitted through the wifi?
 
aperry said:
So how does this work? I know the iPad uses wifi to determine approximate location, but I understood that was through a central database that tracks access points' MAC addresses and their location. However with the iPhone it sounds like it uses a different mechanism. Somehow the GPS data is automatically transmitted through the wifi?
Click to expand...

The iphone can use cell tower triangulation to determine it's location. It's normally not as accurate as your more likely to have many wifi points to use than many cell towers in one spot.
 
Wont be so great when ATT sends you that mystery bill! Watch out! I did the same thing for about a week until i realized it wasn't worth the risk....
 
I really doubt that the GPS info from the iPhone is being relayed to the iPad.

The iPad is triangulating its position from surrounding WiFi access points.

It's using your tethered iPhone connection to look up the location of the surrounding points with SkyHook.
 
Stetrain said:
I really doubt that the GPS info from the iPhone is being relayed to the iPad.

The iPad is triangulating its position from surrounding WiFi access points.

It's using your tethered iPhone connection to look up the location of the surrounding points with SkyHook.
Click to expand...

Exactly! You stated that perfectly.
 
Yeah, I tried this yesterday and it's definitely not using the iphone's GPS. The ipad's location is updated every 10 or 20 seconds or so while I'm driving and it's not very accurate. Its not smooth or accurate enough to use for navigation. Definitely using the wifi AP's.
 
You guys were right. I tried it again at the house logged into MyWi and it still showed me in NY. I still don't understand how that all works but it is what it is. I still have my iphone for doing what I need to do. Sorry for the false information.
 
Lamonster said:
That's cool thanks. So why am I showing that I'm in NY at home in East TN? Is that because the ISP is located there? wouldn't it show one of the hubs in TN?
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Is there any chance that you bought your wireless router from someone in NY (like on eBay or something)?

This happened to a friend of mine. His brother gave him a wireless router and he started using it (50 miles away), and his location still appears as his brother's house because it's tracked by the wireless router's MAC address.
 
Lamonster said:
That's cool thanks. So why am I showing that I'm in NY at home in East TN? Is that because the ISP is located there? wouldn't it show one of the hubs in TN?
Click to expand...

The Maps locator is placing you in NY? This could be one of the quirks of Skyhook. Skyhook registers the MAC addresses of access points it finds. If someone moves it still has the old information in its database. So, if Bob lived in NYC and then moves to Miami, Skyhook is going to mistakenly tell an iPod Touch/iPad user that they're in NYC if that access point is used for reference.

Back when the original iPhone came out this situation was very common. I personally had a situation on the original iPhone where I was driving along and it was doing ok (for locating) and then suddenly the map flew to a location about 80 miles away. Then it came back again. I ended up finding one of those logged access points that moved and it suddenly put me in another city and then when it found the next access point it sent me back to where I should have been.

Can you see a lot of wireless access points from your home? It will use whatever logged access point it has for reference to try to locate you.
 
avaloncourt said:
The Maps locator is placing you in NY? This could be one of the quirks of Skyhook. Skyhook registers the MAC addresses of access points it finds. If someone moves it still has the old information in its database. So, if Bob lived in NYC and then moves to Miami, Skyhook is going to mistakenly tell an iPod Touch/iPad user that they're in NYC if that access point is used for reference.

Back when the original iPhone came out this situation was very common. I personally had a situation on the original iPhone where I was driving along and it was doing ok (for locating) and then suddenly the map flew to a location about 80 miles away. Then it came back again. I ended up finding one of those logged access points that moved and it suddenly put me in another city and then when it found the next access point it sent me back to where I should have been.

Can you see a lot of wireless access points from your home? It will use whatever logged access point it has for reference to try to locate you.
Click to expand...

I live in the country in the middle of nowhere. I bought my router from a friend here in Greeneville TN and he bought it new from Apple so I'm not sure what the deal is.

I have two routers at the house here, one shows me in NY and the other shows me in TN so I guess it is the router.
 
Lamonster said:
I live in the country in the middle of nowhere. I bought my router from a friend here in Greeneville TN and he bought it new from Apple so I'm not sure what the deal is.

I have two routers at the house here, one shows me in NY and the other shows me in TN so I guess it is the router.
Click to expand...

If you're seeing variation like that it's definitely the router is indexed with Skyhook. MAC addresses are supposed to be entirely unique. There should never be a situation where to of any device have the same MAC address but I suppose a company could have recycled a number for some reason or Skyhook has a bad entry in their database. I suppose you could register it with Skyhook and see if it releases the old information and moves it to the correct location.
 
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