Comments on: Why GPS Matters

By: Aaron

Aaron — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 23:52:49 +0000

Coincidence? maybe….read this

http://apple.slashdot.org/apple/07/01/06/2116256.shtml

By: Joey Livingston

Joey Livingston — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 14:27:37 +0000

Wouldn’t one of the most important functions of built-in GPS be the potential of recovering your stolen Macbook/Macbook Pro?

By: Aaron

Aaron — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 23:00:44 +0000

From the last few comments it has become clear that the upsides for having GPS in computers is minimal considering the costs involved to make such a thing happen. And I wouldn’t knock the rumour itself, its obviously generating enough interest!

By: Michael May

Michael May — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 16:04:14 +0000

Haha…

Steve J: And there is one more thing… for all you geographically confused farmers, we’ve put GPS in all our macs so you know where you are!

This is getting stupider by the minute. Come up with some decent rumours or wait till monday, please!

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 15:16:36 +0000

“within x miles of where you are”

This would actually be useful for farmers or people who live outside of towns. The only thing a user can set is their town-based location. For a farmer who lives exactly 20 miles between 2 towns, that doesn’t help them much if they’re looking for the nearest parts dealer (yes, they should know where to get tractor parts by now:).

By: Michael May

Michael May — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 13:47:06 +0000

I’m pretty sure that GPS doesn’t work inside – even 2 feet from the window, it needs direct line of sight for a large part of the sky, so that would eliminate its use in most places. Secondly, it’s therefore doubly pointless for desktops, since i) they don’t move and ii) they stay inside. Thirdly, I’m pretty sure most people use their laptops inside as well. I can’t really see this as appealing to the mass market, so why would apple do it?

*prepares to eat hat next monday*

By: Aaron

Aaron — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 08:02:11 +0000

Thanks for answering my question!

The items you mentioned are probably just a few of the many ideas Apple could implement if GPS is in Apple hardware, however there is the issues of security and privacy which you failed to mention and I think your readers should be aware of. The example of having co-ordinates as meta data sounds all well and good (trivial as it is), however on the flip side implementations involving GPS could work against the user.

Forget the meta data example. Anyone who has a different agenda (i.e. hackers) MAY be able to do some damaging stuff with GPS if it becomes a part of Apple hardware and becomes mainstream. Would you really want a hacker to know the exact location of your MacBook? Would you want anyone to know? Some may not care, others would be really thinggy about it, like me :)

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 05:51:54 +0000

Having a GPSr built into Apple hardware would be nice, but it wouldn’t eliminate my need for a stand alone GPSr. I use GPS Photo Linker to geotag my photos.

http://oregonstate.edu/~earlyj/gpsphotolinker/

By: Henri Bergius

Henri Bergius — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 05:28:09 +0000

Oops, forgot the link to the GeoClue page in GNOME wiki: http://live.gnome.org/GeoClue

By: Henri Bergius

Henri Bergius — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 05:27:15 +0000

GPS is not the only way applications could gain information on user’s physical position, which is why the GNOME folks are trying to come up with a nice abstraction layer that supports multiple sources like GeoIP, Plazes and GPS.