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The northernmost recorded iPhone user

iphone-arctic-20080926.jpg

Sonic Lighter is slightly different to all the other iPhone virtual lighters; it checks in with the GPS and pings a remote server with the device’s location at the moment the app was started.

The result: a Google Map covered with little red flames, every one of them an instance of Sonic Lighter getting all lit up.

And the map has few surprises: big swathes of red flames across North America, Europe and Japan. But hold on, what’s that, up there? In the Arctic Ocean, hundreds of miles north of the Chukchi Sea, itself north of where Alaska and Russia kiss? It’s a single, solitary Sonic Lighter ignition. Maybe it’s a member of Sarah Palin’s crack squad of Russia-monitoring sniffer dogs. Or maybe it was just some guy on a plane. Either way, we salute you, most-northerly Sonic Lighter user. You should get a prize, or something.

(If anyone’s taken their iPhone to the north or south poles, and has some interesting iPhone pics to prove it, please contact the Cult.)

(Via Gruber)

About the author

gilest

Giles Turnbull is a freelance writer in England. He is a columnist for PA, and has written for the BBC, Guardian, Daily Telegraph, MacUser, Macworld, and The Morning News. He has a blog you can ignore and a Twitter account you needn't follow.

Email the author | Read more posts by Giles Turnbull.

7 comments

    Hey, I’m not a geography expert, but is that ONE on North Korea compared to ZERO on south korea? lol.

    Well, it’s COLD up there, what other app is the fella supposed to use?

    nahh it is in south korea, and it looks like more than one
    If it were in north korea that guy would be dead before that map was created

    I bet it’s Governor Sarah Palin out there protecting us in case Putin decides to invade the US through Alaska. And she’s probably using her lighter while jamming to her theme song, “Barracuda”.

    I’ll sleep safe and sound tonight knowing Sarah’s looking out for me.

    its interesting,as I have worked in the arctic several times and there is no GSM coverage anywhere north of 60*, curious what service the phone is on!

    I have had my iPhone map show me in the Arctic Ocean when I was actually in Wolfeboro, NH. It showed me as being in Austria when I was at a different place in Wolfeboro. I think it’s a database error from Skyhook Wireless.

    It’s a polar bear calling for help from a breakaway ice floe.

    Australia is blank? So it’s not released there? And there’s not even one tourist or business man who can use it there?

    Maybe we’ll see one in Antarctica once winter ends. And Apple opens that new store on Adelaide Island.

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