Google Maps and Location awareness
So the mobile blogsphere has been all awash with the news that Google has added location awareness to its Google Maps for Mobile.
People are speculating how they have done this. It could be they have their own database of cell-ids that they are builing up by combining it with GPS information or that they have done deals with operators or maybe both.
I hope that this is all done independently and Google are able to share this with independent developers. To date, location based apps were dependent on going thru a third party aggregator to get to the operators locations apis. These were so expensive per call that most location based apps have failed at the drawing board. If the a cell-id database was in the public domain then finally location based apps would become a distinct possibility.
Of course as someone who has sat at the back with his coat on at a thousand presentations on “20xx is the year for mobile” I aint holding my breath.
As for the application itself, does it work? Well yes mostly, when you open the app (I am using a Sony K800i) it has a stab at locating you and gets within 2000 metres most of the time. Out here in the country it gave up a couple of times and I imagine the cells are quite big, but still not bad at all.
I’d reccomend you have a go and I think it even works on the odd Crackberry too.
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