Stupid tech bloggers tap into GPS chip
by Volker Weber
You may not have known this, but besides missing a 3G radio, the WiFi-only iPad also lacks the A-GPS chip that enables exact GPS positioning versus less-accurate WiFi triangulation. Well, according to Tablet Monsters, if you've got an iPhone with iOS 4.3 and are subscribed to Personal Hotspot, your shiny slate should be able to tap into the GPS chip of it's smaller-screened family member. Reports in the MacRumors forums confirm ...
No, you can't tap into the GPS chip. It's really simple: the iPhone tells Apple where it is. The iPad asks Apple: where is my access point? And in our next broadcast we talk about Skyhook and how it works.
Comments
Thank you Volker for debunking this iPhone-to-iPad-GPS-over-WiFi-myth. I'm asking myself how many of those tech blogs will still fall for this. The result of having the iPad know where it is seems nice though.
Apple ditched Skyhook's location services starting with iOS 4. Much like Google, I guess Apple's own devices now have enough penetration to collect the data themselves and there is obviously great value in owning it.
Jeff, I know. That's why I wrote "to Apple". And I am simlifying. The iPad volunteers more information than the AP it's connected to.
It would still be nice to be able to connect to an external Bluetooth GPS without jailbreak and for the iPhone to provide GPS via bluetooth for the iPad ... Android phones can do that.
I think to most of their readers, GPS is just Global Positioning Service. How this is done - via satellites or via APs - is just of secondary nature and important to geeks like us who like to emphasize the fine difference.
Or is this because they are tech bloggers who need to come up with "some" content?
