Mobile Phone GPS – Where are we going?

BlackBerry 8800 GPS

Most smartphones slated for release over the next 12-months include a GPS receiver, built in. After that, it will be a marked failure to not include a GPS in a phone. The functionality that comes with GPS is outstanding – mapping, directions, location based experiences, etc. We’re about to enter an age of advancement in technological capabilities that we’re just beginning to imagine.

Consumers are moving to smartphones. The hottest smartphones (iPhone 3G, BlackBerry Bold 9000, most of Nokia’s Symbian and HTC’s Windows Mobile offerings) all include GPS and an exposed API for developing applications utilizing their hardware. Anything people can conceive of for location based mashups will be coming (more on these mashups in later posts)…

trackinghistory

Here’s a first application…

BlackBerry is a leader in mobile phone GPS. Recently a few services that announce the location of one’s phone emerged. Initially these were billed as a sort of low-jack for one’s phone, a security service for the insecure (or those who want to spy on their kids, etc).

I decided to try a few of these. Most felt slimy, like, “you always know where your phone is, and you could also know where your wife is!” … I don’t know about you, but my phone is loyal and doesn’t run off with strangers… And I trust my wife far more than a phone.

My goal with trying these services was to mash Twitter, Pownce, Facebook, and other social networking services with my location. Such a mashup will allow me to share my real-time location with all friends. I came across BlackberryTracker.com. Much like the others, the idea is to provide you with the location of your phone. However, they have something the other’s don’t… Facebook and Google Earth integration (as well as a drop-dead-simple semi-RESTful API).

Friends can pinpoint me down to the meter on my Facebook profile, updated every 30 seconds. To be honest, it feels strange to openly publish this data. Security, and lack thereof, has us believing we shouldn’t share such information. But this fear is caused by the exception and not the rule. And in reality, my location in public isn’t private. Additionally, there are laws and common courtesies we live by, and I trust that people are inherently good.

Soon these services will be in the mainstream. Everyone will be able to pinpoint the location of anyone. Let me emphasize that… Soon everyone will be able to pinpoint the location of anyone. Not publishing your location will be like not having a mobile phone.

FriendFeed items not updating

FriendFeed + Delicious = 0

I’ve been using FriendFeed and del.icio.us more and more lately. Viigo (one of the best mobile RSS experiences available) has direct push to del.icio.us. It’s far superior to the iPhone’s mobile Google Reader sharing experience, so I’ve been happily consuming and sharing.

But FriendFeed isn’t updating these del.icio.us posts. It would be understandable if everything weren’t updating, but it seems to be del.icio.us entries. Flickr, blog entries, Google Reader, and Twitter items are nearly instant.

To get around this one can view his or her page, edit/add services, click the del.icio.us item, and finally click ‘refresh’ – but that’s hardly worth the effort.

Is FriendFeed feeling growing pains? Bret Taylor mentioned in a comment to Robert Scoble (who had similar updating problems) FriendFeed had a hiccup during a spider.

Personally, I doubt this was anything more than a technical glitch, but geez… The purpose of FriendFeed is to share what we’re doing on the Internet. If things aren’t pulling through, it’s a critical issue.

Yahoo! – components that matter to me after no search

YGMThe news of the week (month/year?) is the $44.6 billion offer from Microsoft to acquire Yahoo!. Robert Scoble blogs the intelligence of Google’s email and Dave Winer drops thoughts on Yahoo’s options based on TechCrunch blogger Mike Arrington’s analysis. Mike Arrington’s latest news is a bit disheartening. Either sell to Microsoft or sell their search to Google.

Yahoo! has a lot more than search to offer – it shouldn’t be their primary business. As Scoble and Winer both pointed out, the wars are being fought on platforms – Especially the mobile platform. Yahoo!’s Go service synchronizes calendars, contacts, etc, from phone or PC and runs on Windows, OS X, BlackBerry, Symbian (Nokia), and Windows Mobile. Heck, it runs on almost every phone out there and OS X has Yahoo Sync built in. It’s been over a year since I’ve synchronized my phone by wire and I’m able to keep three phones and two laptops in sync.

Dave Winer shares insight from past technology wars while asking which platform will be adopted as the standard for synchronization of contacts, social networking, etc. I argue it could be Yahoo!. They’re embracing OpenID and offering Pipes. The Go service has plugins which tie in to MySpace and other social networking sites. They’ve got an identity system, a delivery method, and a decent reach in to the mobile market.

Finally, Yahoo’s two destinations – Yahoo! Music and Yahoo! Finance. These two are both number 1 in their class. Numero Uno. Why? They have content. Google offers search – when you’re looking for content. Yahoo!’s Music and Finance (and other sites) have that content.

These are the Yahoo! products that matter to me and the reason I’m a Yahoo! shareholder. If the sale goes through I’ll happily cash out with a profit and start looking elsewhere for services that satisfy consumer need.

Back to the iPhone

iPhoneA while back I wrote about switching to the BlackBerry 8800. The long route to that BlackBerry was because I wasn’t entirely happy with the iPhone – it was just a glorified phone/iPod when released. Now that Google Mail supports IMAP IDLE, 3rd party apps are running, and the 1.1.3 update can be used on my preferred T-Mobile (with a little massaging), I’m back to using it as the preferred lifestreaming device.

Until Term-vt100 works as well as Rove’s SSH client, the 8800 stays in my bag for backup…

Living Disconnected – BlackBerry 8800 back to life

A BlackBerry 8800 had been my mobile of choice for about six months in early 2007 prior to picking up an iPhone. I moved to the iPhone and the honeymoon lasted for a while, but the loss of instant email and being able to use real software ultimately killed the love. If you call yourself a software developer you develop software (or at least are thinking about developing software).

Since I’ve been diving in to a heavier load of server programming, an SSH client has been a priority. Rove offers a terrific terminal app, Mobile SSH, covering Telnet, SSH 1&2, etc. It’s $95, but well worth it. Tailing a log file while walking with my wife last weekend was far superior to sitting at Starbucks and dealing with WiFi. Spoiled? What?

Add to it that Rove offers a combination VNC RDC client called Mobile Desktop and a file manager app (though I have no idea when I’ll be FTPing or SFTPing stuff from the bberry – who has that much content on a bberry??). What Rove lacks in creativity for naming its products, it makes up in enterprise level quality.

If I had thumbs and fingers the size of matchsticks, the blackberry could replace my laptop. The keyboard is small, but so what?… Mobile blogging isn’t about long, drawn out posts (like this one? Sorry.) With WordPress hooked up, posts are possible. We’ll see if this turns in to a true mobile blogging platform… I’d love to hear from people on their preferences in the mobile blogging arena.

So it’s hooked in to WordPress for mobile posts. Flickr is plugged in to the 8800 and flickrRSS on WordPress. Twitter is plugged in to everything. I’m not so hot on Facebook – I’ll write my own apps…