Put yourself on the map with Skyhook for better iPhone location

Thanks to the iPhone’s new self-location feature, the Zen amongst us can finally find ourselves—or a radius of where we’re likely to be. But your results may vary depending on the data available for your area. If you’re relying on cellphone location, it’s only really handy if you’ve, say, been dumped out of the trunk of a 1994 Lincoln Continental and have no idea what state you’re in. To give a completely hypothetical example. Otherwise, it’s somewhat lacking (I’m in Boston? Thanks, iPhone!).

The Wi-Fi location information provided by Skyhook Wireless is definitely more useful—if your area is mapped in their database. Fortunately, unlike with the cellphone locating, you can do something about the Wi-Fi mapping. Reader Robert wrote in to tell us about his experience with contacting Skyhook on how to add his own Wi-Fi access point to their database. Interested in doing the same? Find the instructions, straight from the horse’s mouth, after the jump.

1. Find your location as latitude, longitude

First we need to determine the location of the AP. Go to Google Maps (http://maps.google.com) and find the location of your access point on the map. Center the map (double-click on it) on the location and then enter the following into your Address Bar:

javascript:void(prompt('',gApplication.getMap().getCenter()));

This will open a prompt giving you the latitude,longitude of the center of
the map. Copy and paste that into an email. If you are having problems there
is a little more detailed tutorial here.

2. Find the MAC Address of your wireless access point

Next we need to get the MAC Address of your AP. This can be tricky, so its best to use software to find it. We recommend NetStumbler and iStumbler on Windows and Mac respectively. You can download the programs at the following links:

Windows: http://www.netstumbler.com/
Mac: http://istumbler.net/

Find your AP in the list and the associated MAC address for it. Now paste the MAC address in the email.

Now you should have a MAC address, latitude and longitude. Its good to recheck the location by pasting the latitude, longitude back into Google Maps to make sure its the right location. Once you verify it, send us the information and we’ll add them to the database. It may take up to a week before the AP is available when using your iPhone or iPod touch.

Update: As a commenter pointed out, I didn't include an email address, and while I'm not sure if this is the ideal vector of contact, I'd recommend trying support@skyhookwireless.com and asking if you can send them the info.

Category: Wi-Fi

Posted by Dan Moren on Jan 22 2008, 11:52 AM ET

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