GPS and Google Maps/Windows Live Search

[ecruben]

2 questions.

1) Can either the new Google app or WLS tie into the GPS info provided on a standard smartphone (i.e. one that gets its position in part from mobile provider RATHER than the actual satellites)? I ask because no smartphone I know of (and very few WM5 devices save the HP and Fujitsu Siemans) have true satellite-based GPS feature....THUS (as I understand it) the lats and longs reside on the mobile provider's servers (which E911 has access to) and is not necessarily visibile to the device itself and thus an app residing on the device.

In otherwords, if I have a smartphone like a Motorola Q or Samsung Blackjack, does either WLS or Google Maps know the position of the device automatically by grabbing the data from the GPS OR do I have to enter an address manually?

2) If indeed the Google Maps/WLS can get position info automatically, then how good is the accuracy? If I'm in NYC, will Google Maps get my position to within say, 500 feet? Or more like 10 feet? etc. etcc.

Thanks!!

[AdamaDBrown]

1) Can either the new Google app or WLS tie into the GPS info provided on a standard smartphone (i.e. one that gets its position in part from mobile provider RATHER than the actual satellites)?

No. For that matter, I don't think any software can. That sort of information is usually not available to the device, and in fact probably isn't even calculated except in the case of an emergency call, since that work has to fall to the network.

In otherwords, if I have a smartphone like a Motorola Q or Samsung Blackjack, does either WLS or Google Maps know the position of the device automatically by grabbing the data from the GPS OR do I have to enter an address manually?

You'd have to enter an address manually.

[Sven Johannsen]

Nothing stops you from picking up a BT GPS unit and letting GM/WLS use the location that provides. A bit less clean than the device itself providing the function, but embedding a GPS hasn't caught on that well yet. There are PPCPE devices that have that feature.