Rants And Ramblings About Mobile Technology
Anders Borg writing about the fun and crazy world of mobile and Internet service technologies.
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Thursday, July 02, 2009
Location, full circle
Just a short time after WAP browsers were provided in mobile phones, and even before that via SMS, operators offered “near you” type services that listed (without fancy graphics or maps) e.g. petrol stations in your vicinity. That worked fine, using network-based cell location, except nobody used those services at the time.
A few years ago GPS was all the rage, but it’s still marginally available/used:
- Hardly any phones have GPS. Sure, iPhones and BlackBerrys have, but hardly anyone has iPhones and BlackBerrys (despite the media attention they get).
- The battery drain is still disastrous.
- Sensitivity is also pretty bad, especially on smaller phones, so oftentimes there’s no possibility to determine the location.
- Reaching many users (which mobile services must do to get enough revenue or reach) requires cell or (of increasing interest and viability) Wi-Fi location.
- GPS also has the drawback of not working at all indoors, however sensitive the receiver is.
Hence, what you need to use today for location is primarily cell-based, either by accessing information in the phone (device dependent/limited but free), or go via location brokers and determine the location via the network (device independent but costly).
I wonder though why GPS power consumption can’t be improved? I’m an amateur at best when it comes to radio electronics, but isn’t a GPS receiver just that, a receiver? So what draws all that current?
