One of the enduring complaints about the first-generation iPhone (other than the price, slow EDGE data, AT&T exclusivity, limited storage, battery life, no third-party apps, no landscape keyboard outside of Safari…) is the lack of GPS support in its version of Google Maps. While several high-end smart phones now double as navigation tools, the iPhone requires you to enter your starting location for driving directions.
But that fault might soon disappear. Yesterday, Google rolled out Mobile Google Maps 2.0, which features My Location, a service that uses the positions of nearby cell phone towers to guess where you’re located. It’s not available for iPhone yet, just BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and S60 Nokias (if Apple allowed third-party apps, you’d already have it…), but it seems like an iPhone GMaps update is inevitable. I tried to make it work on my circa-2004 BlackBerry, and it doesn’t work. I now have a phone-crashing application, and that’s it.
Anyone have it working? How accurate is it in your neighborhood?
Via GigaOM
Pete Mortensen is a design strategist for consulting firm Jump Associates and the co-author of Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy, a book and blog that are significantly more interesting than you might initially think. Pete’s particular Apple avocations are both around design–interface and industrial. Follow him on Twitter!
