Is that a GPS module you see plugged into the bottom of an iPhone? Damm straight it is! Part Foundry, a developer of OEM parts and products, claims to have almost ready for distribution a true GPS solution for the iPhone. It’s slated to be available this February for around $90.
Part Foundry is calling its iPhone GPS solution the locoGPS for iPhone. There is of course always a catch when it comes to third party development like this - the locoGPS will only work with jail broken iPhones. If you don’t mind having a hacked phone than you can finally have what is described as that true GPS experience iPhone owners have been wanting.
Technical specifications of the locoGPS for iPhone offering include a SIRF Star III chip, 5m-10m position accuracy, an integrated mini-USB connector for pass through iPhone charging and open source software to allow for community improvements.
[via NaviGadget]
January 8th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
It’s a shame apple didn’t include GPS to begin with. Even with my crap nokia virgin mobile phone I have gps. My phone cost me 40 dollars new, so I doubt GPS could have set apple back substantially had they included it.
Having GPS serves no purpose for me, and I hope it doesn’t ever, because it’s designed to send out a signal if I make an emergency call, something that all cellphones should have (something I cannot over emphasize), considering how many people now do not bother with a landline, which can be traced to an address. Apple’s exclusion of GPS isn’t only near-sighted, it takes away an important safety feature present in many phones already and hinders seriously the functionality of google maps, which could have been extremely useful and impressive with GPS support.
I appreciate the effort of the company providing this add-on, but I don’t think it’s going to be received well, I think the only thing it will succeed in doing is reifying the absurdity of apple’s exclusion of GPS from the iphone to begin with.
Nonetheless…
For trips where GPS might be useful for navigation I can understand someone buying that peripheral, but I doubt anyone is going to endure the presence of that growth on their iphone for the sake of finding calamari in downtown new york more easily. I’d like to know more about how accurate cellphone tower triangulation techniuques are for determining one’s whereabouts, but I have a feeling it is slower and less accurate.
I love apple and everything, but between the lack of 802.1x support and GPS, I feel their product testing apparatus had an off day or there’s something else that’s making the provision of these things difficult for apple to provide, which is frustrating, considering 802.1x is already supported on jailbroken ipod touches and iphones.
January 21st, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Hey, just wondering how/where you can get support for 802.1X even on a jailbroken unit.