Opinionated comments on mobile phone industry news
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Thursday, February 01, 2007
2007, the year of location based services?
Update 20070202: Added Inilex
More on the '2007, the year of...(?)' theme.
Here are three examples of new services that show that things are abrewing. Hardly any mobile phone has integrated GPS as of yet, and most network methods for location are too coarse to be really useful, so an external GPS module is typically needed for these kinds of mapping and location-based search services.
Inilex focuses on location/tracking rather than navigation. The installed device is self-contained, so there's no need for a mobile phone as well.
See also Tracking Your Car by Cell and E-Mail.
Quote: With this service, you can be notified within minutes that your parked car has been moved, presumably by a thief, and shown where it is in real time - fruitful information to pass on to police.
Macrom Cruiser is a location service that utilizes a mobile phone as map terminal.
Appello Systems provides some information in English.
amAze seems to be a bit more consumer-oriented, but otherwise not that different from Macrom Cruiser.
Both services rely on mobile phones and GPS modules (but supposedly Macrom Cruiser can also be used without GPS), that nowadays come with Bluetooth connection.
Some Nokia phones support the Java ME Location API, but e.g. no Sony Ericsson phone does, yet nowadays most new phones support the Java ME Bluetooth API, hence MIDlet developers that want to utilize GPS modules should go for direct communication via Bluetooth in the short term, which involves handling the NMEA protocol and the Bluetooth API. In the future the Location API will take care of the nasty stuff.
So:
More on the '2007, the year of...(?)' theme.
Here are three examples of new services that show that things are abrewing. Hardly any mobile phone has integrated GPS as of yet, and most network methods for location are too coarse to be really useful, so an external GPS module is typically needed for these kinds of mapping and location-based search services.
Inilex focuses on location/tracking rather than navigation. The installed device is self-contained, so there's no need for a mobile phone as well.
See also Tracking Your Car by Cell and E-Mail.
Quote: With this service, you can be notified within minutes that your parked car has been moved, presumably by a thief, and shown where it is in real time - fruitful information to pass on to police.
Macrom Cruiser is a location service that utilizes a mobile phone as map terminal.
Appello Systems provides some information in English.
amAze seems to be a bit more consumer-oriented, but otherwise not that different from Macrom Cruiser.
Both services rely on mobile phones and GPS modules (but supposedly Macrom Cruiser can also be used without GPS), that nowadays come with Bluetooth connection.
Some Nokia phones support the Java ME Location API, but e.g. no Sony Ericsson phone does, yet nowadays most new phones support the Java ME Bluetooth API, hence MIDlet developers that want to utilize GPS modules should go for direct communication via Bluetooth in the short term, which involves handling the NMEA protocol and the Bluetooth API. In the future the Location API will take care of the nasty stuff.
So:
- Will GPS be integrated in most phones or will most consumers get GPS modules during 2007? No way! Not even next year.
- Will network methods for location be good enough for consumer services? Arguably. Outside of cities, absolutely not. In USA it's a different story due to the location requirements, but in Europe, no.
Hence I don't see 2007 as the year of LBS, despite the hype it's created over the years. Technically we are not quite there yet, not saying that there won't be several LBSs launched this year, and some will find customers too, but most likely niched.
