Does the GPS really function like a GPS?

[daveman123]

Hey guys, I couldn't get the GPS to locate me as I was driving today like my old Garmin GPS. What happened was, it located me, and then gave me a list of directions to find my way around. This is not the GPS I was expecting! Am I wrong or is this how "GPS" is on this phone? Also, will the "GPS" work when I'm in the boonies where there are no cell phone towers to "locate me"?

[mast3rpyr0]

GPS just means it can read the signals from the satelite. its not a turn by turn device that tells you where to go... yet

[ubercode]

However you can have it give you direction from your current location to a destination, which will give you turn by turn like the google maps does when you are planning a trip.

[shmokinponcake]

The gps uses satellites. I don't think cell towers have anything to do with it.

[tread]

Hey guys, I couldn't get the GPS to locate me as I was driving today like my old Garmin GPS. What happened was, it located me, and then gave me a list of directions to find my way around. This is not the GPS I was expecting! Am I wrong or is this how "GPS" is on this phone? Also, will the "GPS" work when I'm in the boonies where there are no cell phone towers to "locate me"?

the gps chipset in the g1 is agps (assisted global positioning ssytem) so its not gonna be as accurate as some gps platforms, but it will get the job done... most cheap car navi's use agps as well with their software "snap to" to get the job done of fixating you to the road...

simply put, GPS works mainly off of satellites, not cell phone towers or wifi hotspots so you shouldn't have a problem

[Fastattack]

if you want the turn to turn with voice you will have to wait until an app comes out..

has anyone noticed that if you use the assisted gps vs the satelite gps the "my location" is off about 1/2 mile?

[tread]

this is how it is with google maps... it can't get anymore accurate than that... well i'm sure it can, but that would be a security violation probably

[Fastattack]

this is how it is with google maps... it can't get anymore accurate than that... well i'm sure it can, but that would be a security violation probably
if you use satellite location its dead on..

its not a security violation , gps is +-10 feet from your location ..
but at anytime the government can flip the scramble on the gps if they wanted to ;)

that's how they did it before they opened up the channels for the public to use.

[jrokwitdacapitals18]

GPS just means it can read the signals from the satelite. its not a turn by turn device that tells you where to go... yet

That's bull**** I thought it had gps where your moving and the blue dot will move as you drive. So is this like the iPhone the same way where it just gives you directions ? I thought turn by turn met someone talking. Is it possible for say Tomtom or germin to make a gps app for the phone?

[jersey]

Hey guys, I couldn't get the GPS to locate me as I was driving today like my old Garmin GPS. What happened was, it located me, and then gave me a list of directions to find my way around. This is not the GPS I was expecting! Am I wrong or is this how "GPS" is on this phone? Also, will the "GPS" work when I'm in the boonies where there are no cell phone towers to "locate me"?

Cell phone towers? Go into your settings and set your phone to use GPS satellites and not Cell Phone towers... if I understand your problem, this will take care of it.

[NetCom]

I have expected GPS in that format as well :) - but, you need to understand that usage of GPS on any phone will drain the battery in matter of 3-4 hrs maximum...

So, I think that whoever is in need of GPS unit due to moderate driving every single day - approx. 20 miles / day - or more - should purchase GPS navigation unit for the car.

[Fastattack]

I have expected GPS in that format as well :) - but, you need to understand that usage of GPS on any phone will drain the battery in matter of 3-4 hrs maximum...

So, I think that whoever is in need of GPS unit due to moderate driving every single day - approx. 20 miles / day - or more - should purchase GPS navigation unit for the car.

or make it even easier, just plug it into your car charger and enable the satellite gps option... :)

[fritz269]

This is the way it works on my Blackberry and even though it is off by a bit, sometimes less then half a mile, it seems to work well enough to get me where I need to go.

[jayroam]

i don't think the OP went back to map mode after getting the turn by turn directions. The blue dot does move while you drive. I tried it twice yesterday, and it was very accurate.

[LGSilva]

The aGPS on the G1 gives you a faster location of your position when compared with regular GPS. It's not accurate or faster than high sensitivity GPS but it's good enough for a phone.

I wish Garmim or Tomtom would make an app for our G1. The potential is there, just not being used.

I know WikiPedia is not realiable on some topics but you can get an idea about GPS systems:

Conventional GPS has difficulty providing reliable positions in poor signal conditions. For example when surrounded by tall buildings (resulting in multipath (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multipath)), or when the satellite (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite) signals are weakened when a GPS device is indoors or under trees. Some newer receivers are better at handling these situations.
In addition, when first turned on in these conditions, some non-assisted GPS units may not be able to download the almanac and ephemeris (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephemeris) information from the GPS satellites, rendering them unable to function until a clear signal can be received continuously for up to one minute.
An A-GPS receiver can address these problems in several ways, using an assistance server.

[sullitf]

The A-GPS is only in addition to the GPS chip inside the phone. Previously a few phone carriers sold phones with "GPS" which was really just the A-GPS and gave directions based on the tower information (Sprint maybe???). This is horribly inaccurate for short trips and detailed directions, being off by as much as half a mile. In other phones, especially from Nokia, a GPS chip was provided that used the satellite information and was very accurate but slow to connect and bad in weak signal areas as LGSilva was saying. More recent phones have been designed to fix both problems with A-GPS for fast connection and decent accuracy in most all situations and a dedicated GPS chip that is very accurate but takes some time to get a signal and needs 4 satellites to find your position.

If you want to use the G1 as a GPS in your car I'd definitely recommend a car charger and cradle so that it can be held in a convenient location and charge at the same time. Hopefully someone will soon design a program to read the directions, I can't imagine it would be that hard once the source code is released

[daveman123]

i don't think the OP went back to map mode after getting the turn by turn directions. The blue dot does move while you drive. I tried it twice yesterday, and it was very accurate.

Oh great so it does serve as a GPS then, just without TTS. I was most concerned with the blue dot moving with me but I guess maybe I wasn't zoomed in. I guess I will work with it tomorrow, thanks!

[tiki]

I turned on satellite GPS today and it NAILED my location.

I half expected to see myself standing there on the satellite map view.

Then I got in the car and started driving around and the blue dot stayed right with me as I drove- the map just scrolled along with the car at 55+ mph

This was on EDGE too

it was amazing

[almightyA]

it uses either wifi networks/cell phone tower triangulation as a default when looking for 'my location', but turning on GPS combines all three and gives significantly better results.


i was sitting on bench that i could see on the maps application, with gps enabled, pressed my location and it literally put the 'my location dot' on the bench. i was stunned.

[f4phantomii]

That's bull**** I thought it had gps where your moving and the blue dot will move as you drive. So is this like the iPhone the same way where it just gives you directions ? I thought turn by turn met someone talking. Is it possible for say Tomtom or germin to make a gps app for the phone?

Here's the situation....

A developer already put together a very snappy GPS application that provided turn-by-turn navigation, voice prompting, the whole nine yards. It looked very mature and the screenshots were fantastic.

Then someone from Google contacted him and pointed out that the GoogleMaps Terms of Service prohibit their use for turn-by-turn navigation. I assume this is exactly the same handicap that the iPhone has.

Thus the developer was looking for other sources of cartography. He's working hard on it, but I'd expect it's a month or two away from a releasable version.

Try to be patient...I travel constantly on business and I use my venerable old Garmin iQue 3600 every step of the way. My G1 is intended to replace it, but I'm hanging in there....I firmly believe an open source navigation solution is going to be available far before a commercial app. The iPhone 3G's been out for months now and still no GPS navigation application (with turn-by-turn) for it.

Tom-Tom *might* develop something for Android. I doubt very much that Garmin will do so...they are going to be pushing their NuviPhone early next year...I doubt they'll want to support a competing smart phone platform.

But as I said before, I think the open source nav solution is going to be much better anyway.....development will be much more rapid with constant updates and feature improvements. You won't get that from a commercial app.

[robmpulse]

I had telenav before on my nextel. Absolutely loved it.

Can't wait for an android solution to come through.

Yes, it does drain the battery.... But unless i was on a road trip, i never had a problem with it....... And even then, i would just leave my phone charging......

[pdass20]

What would this device do on the G1?
GARMIN Mobile GPS 10x, GPS Receiver for Smartphones, BlackBerry, PDA, Laptop (010-00579-19)