While my major beef with the iPhone was lack of 3G, many people were and still are very angry about the missing of GPS in the device. But, thanks to the iPhone hacking community and Navizon, that feature gap may be getting closed.
Navizon is a company that provides “peer-to-peer wireless positioning,” which basically allows users to map cellular towers and WiFi access points to geographic coordinates, creating a simulated GPS for use on GPS-less mobile devices. Today, Navizon released a version of their application for the iPhone. The app, which is a native iPhone program available from Nullriver’s AppTapp Installer (using Community Sources), requires just a quick registration online (no email address required) before searching for your location. In a cab driving through the Upper West Side of Manhattan, I was not able to get a location with WiFi turned off, though when turned on (but not connected to a network) Navizon would open the Google Maps app with a red pin in the same intersection I was in. Back at home, I’m still not able to get a location based simply on cellular towers, though WiFi maps my location off by about one city block.
So sure, this “P2P GPS” solution isn’t as good as the real thing, but provides a sleek, easy-to-use, and (at least in my testing) accurate alternative to actual GPS.
It didn't work for me, on my home WiFi network.
Navizon is an interesting idea, but they need a pretty high critical mass to make it useful. Since they don't provide a tool to report your location (yet) on the iPhone, they can't take advantage of a million potential users who could add lots of useful information to their database.
Skyhook Wireless drives the streets of hundreds of cities constantly, and I haven't seen a hack yet to put their queries into Google Maps on the iPhone, and I'd like to. When I've tested Skyhook, I often am placed within a few dozen feet. Navizon, within a few miles, which is weird in Seattle. In my office, where I can see 10 to 14 Wi-Fi networks, Navizon placed me 2 miles away today.
It got me within thirty meters, in the middle of San Francisco, via WiFi. I'm most impressed. This might be a viable stop-gap for our GPS-less phones.
Does it work via cell phone tower locations too?
UUUuuhh -
Hacking the dang iPhone ! ! !
Yikes, I've become my dad (and I swore that would never happen - "Don't be messin with stuff Ray, you'll break it and then what'll ya do?).
As cool as this sounds - I gotta wait for Big Brother to do it for me (Apple, yur killin' me here - makin' me wait for the "gooder" stuff).
Thanks again to all the braver-than-me who make and test these types of things. YOU are the ones shoving Apple down the road even faster.
That Ray Guy
This friggin thing crashed my iPhone.
Thanks.
I'm still waiting for someone to make the maps program work with a bluetooth GPS receiver. That's something I would pay for.
Has anybody seen this work yet? Anywhere?
Over the weekend I drove from San Francisco to LA and back on 101 - a heavily traffic'd California highway. I tried Navizon 25-30 times, never found a single location.
I'm also skeptical of their Website. I typed in my zip code (94588) and found that, amazingly, my neighbor has an invisible Cingular cell tower in his back yard. No way to update or correct the data, or even add the location of the cell tower a mile away.
I finally got Navizone to work in Santa Monica.
It said I was in Vancouver.
i am currently in dubai
i am using the navizon (not working)
and i have the following message
no known cells or WiFi nodes in Range
is the use of the software only in the US