Sprint Nextel And Verizon Wireless Both Open Up Phones For Location-Based Services

Sprint (NYSE: S) Nextel and Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ) both made announcements today that will make accessing location on the phone easier. While Sprint’s announcement is fairly comprehensive, Verizon’s was restricted to some Windows Mobile devices.

Sprint partners with WaveMarket and uLocate: Sprint Nextel announced today that it was partnering with WaveMarket’s Veriplace and uLocate’s WHERE to make it easier for developers to create location-based services for their phones. The platform allows third-parties to offer location services for Web, Wap and SMS services. It also has an emphasis on privacy, and requires customers to give permissions in order for it to work. The platform uses all types of location services, including GPS, triangulation and others. Developers can find more information here. Release.

Verizon opens GPS on Windows Mobile: Verizon Wireless is promising to unlock the GPS on some of its recent Windows Mobile devices, including the Samsung Omnia and Saga and the HTC Touch Pro, reports Brighthand. Verizon is expected to do so in the first half of 2009. In a statement, Verizon said: “In the case of open standalone GPS, we are partnering with the Windows Mobile device manufacturers to provide a software upgrade that will add this capability to the existing assisted GPS capability.”

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