@BEN:
*a-hem*
Huh?

hughjass

@eosjack:
Doesn't work on my Sprint 700wx :-(

Instantly says "Your current location is temporarily unavailable"

hughjass

I am using a BlackBerry 8700 on T-Mobile in a Minneapolis, MN Suburb and I am able to get a location that has an accuracy of 500 meters. The Blue dot is mroe then close enough to help me with anything I needed to use if for, and I am in a big office building with medium reception.

Captain Angry

My blackjack (V1) has "your current location is temporarily unavailable". I'm in northern Chicago suburb, fwiw.

klauss_nussbaum

Location thingy completely doesn't work for me on my Razr V3xx. Also, this new version doesn't let me use the down button on my navigation pad! Arrrgh! And they also removed the zoom in/out icons from the screen. Anyone else have this problem on a Razr?

winexprt

@ideaman2020:

is that rotgut moonshine or porn?? i guess it doesn't matter. they are both cool.

drewheyman

Well, my Blackberry thinks it (and I) is two blocks further east than I really am, but it's got me on the right cross street. That's better than it used to do, so that's fine by me.

No, no, no

@matthew_k: I'm always wondering where the nearest XXX is.

But that's just because I really like XXX...

ideaman2020

"your current location is temporarily unavailable"

drugs

wow, on my blackberry it knows exactly where i am, down to the correct side of the building at full zoom. very cool.

drewheyman

@weatherman: Have you ever thought "I wonder where the nearest XXX is?".

With a stupid phone, you pay at%t/tmobile/verizon close to $2 to speak to an operator who spends ten seconds finding something close to what you're looking for, and connects you with them instead of asking you if it's what you're looking for.

With a smart phone, you pull up Windows Live Search(which is the first piece of MS software that's impressed me in I don't know how long) or Google Mobile, and search for Sushi near San Francisco, CA. It's better, but there are a lot of sushi places in San Francisco.

With psudo-gps, you search for Sushi near me. And it give you a list, sorted by distance. Since it's only accurate to 1/4 mile, it might give you one that's 1.2 miles away instead of the one that's a mile away, but that's not really the end of the world.

Of course, you could type in your address, but on any smart phone it that takes at least 20 seconds, and you can't do it while driving, and it's difficult while walking down a crowded sidewalk.

matthew_k

while this is a nice feature, the most important features they need in my mind are the ability to save maps, and then the ability to have updating turn by turn driving directions with audio cues. I just got back from a trip to Europe and would have loved to have been able to use google maps at times, but I didn't want to pay the very high prices for data. If I could have just saved the maps to my memory card before the trip that would have been perfect.

genpetahhhh

This has me wayy off,not even within the blue circle.. I'd say it's off by a mile (in the country)
working 100% on Verizon 8130

Wegmans

What's the deal with no Palm OS support?? Weak sauce....

tcarewe

@eosjack: Nothing works on Treos, not even Palm OS.

BEN

@dearhaw: well, I guess that's true. My main point is that the utility is commensurate with the accuracy. If it ends up being relatively accurate, great. If it's within a ten block radius and I don't know where I am already, it's not terribly useful. Better than nothing I suppose, and a damn-sight better than paying Verizon for their crappy GPS service. In a real pinch I'd rather have a real GPS, but I guess the best GPS is the one you have with you.

weatherman

This is awesome. Works great on my Verizon BB 8830. I'm on the 38th floor downtown Chicago - it's off by 3-4 blocks, but good enough for me.

RGfin

I'm impressed, it has me within a half block in lower manhattan.

I still prefer MS's Live Search Mobile's interface (zoom in/out interface is way, way better), not to mention the voice activated searching and movie times, etc. But I will now keep GMM on my Dash as well for when I'm looking for something in an unknown area. Hopefully MS will step up and update Live Search with a similar "find me" feature soon.

werk

@TonyRockyHorror: In February hopefully (SDK Release).

Rain-man

i guess a w810i isn't a newer sony anymore ... no blue dot for me

se5k

@nakmario: Where are you located? The Beta doesn't specifically state it (unless I missed it), but this service should have a "coverage area". In order to determine your location, Google needs to have a database of cell towers near you. I'm sure they've done that work for most major metropolitan areas, but it won't work everywhere... yet. At least not in the Beta.

Tonicboy

@weatherman: I can think of a hundred reasons. For starters, maybe you're visiting some city on vacation and you're not sure exactly where you are but you want to see what coffee shops are nearby. The approximate location would help you to determine your exact location by looking at street signs and then you get access to Google's great directory.

By the way, the initial estimate of location was wildly innacurate, almost a mile off, which is the other side of the world in San Francisco. But I noticed that it was pretty close to where I had just been half an hour ago so I started thinking, then I called my voicemail, check the Google Maps again and sure enough, the location updated to within two blocks. I guess that makes sense since it can only go by the most recent network activity detected, like a passive sonar.

I've also tried the Navizon free trial and while it is much more accurate (down the direction you are facing), it also takes much much longer to determine your location. Following the previous analogy, I'm guessing that it uses an "active sonar" approach where it will send signals from your phone in order to then get a better read of what towers you are near.

Tonicboy

"Your current location is temporarily unavailable"

:(

not working for me.

nakmario

c'mon iPhone update!

davidhildreth

@weatherman:

So you've never been in a situation when you're walking around downtown (or in another town) and wondered "Hmm, where's the nearest Kinkos from here?"?

It happens to me all the time and now with the iPhone, what I tend to do is go to Google Maps, type in the current address (or two intersecting street names), get current location, then search for "Kinkos" (or whatever) in the search bar to get a list of said establishment.

This feature would come in quite handy for situations like that.

dearhaw

@Stang70Fastback:
Just updated my T-Mobile BB Pearl and it works great!

--Bill

bigbill25

Navizon provides a similar capability,
you can download a 2 week trial for your jailbroken Iphone

kitron

Just tried it on my HTC Wizard and it works fine, definitely close enough if I'm looking for restaurants, stores etc.

Chimera

I'm not sure I understand the need for GPS-like services if you're not driving. Especially something so inexact. You don't need a weatherman to tell you which way the wind blows, and you probably don't need google telling you're somewhere within a mile and half of nowhere.

weatherman

@TonyRockyHorror: You're absolutely right. Google Maps for web browsers has had several updates since the release of the iPhone, but the phone's maps app has remained the same. How does a company working so closely with Google not anticipate that all of their services get frequent upgrades?

Cwicseolfor

Just downloaded and installed on 8300 on ATT. Works like a charm. Again, not too accurate to make left/right turns or the correct street for that matter but good enough to know where you are on the interstate. Fine for me, plus pressing '0' takes the guess work out of finding a starting address like it's designed to do.

Nick_M

There used to be a hack for the iPhone that did exactly this. I don't know if it's still out there, but I remember a coworker installing it on his back in september.

WorkingOnYourInvoice

I would try it but T-Mobile sux...

Stang70Fastback

Just tried on my ATT 8525 with WM5 and it works. It's about a mile and a half off, but I'm a bit in the boonies, so I can't complain.

bobbaddeley

Neat! I'm playing with this right now, and it works kinda decently. My "dot" is a few blocks away, but I'm well within the estimated range, so not bad.

It's not a proper GPS replacement since it's not accurate enough for driving directions, but it's perfect for being able to recenter the map on your location automatically, and that's a big step in the right direction.

typoink

Any word on whether or not this works on Treo's?

eosjack

I've been playing with this for a while now and I gotta say, it's freakin' awesome. It's pretty much killed my need to get a smart phone with a GPS since I really only wanted it for mapping anyway. Not as accurate as GPS, but you get the general location and that's usually enough for me.

junk

let's hope Apple updates the Maps app on the iPhone to take advantage of this.

like srsly.

TonyRockyHorror

I don't want to go through one or two special mobile apps that use location.

Instead I want a button in my phone browser that enables sending my location to any and all web sites. It only needs a simple standard for communicating location to Web sites. When I click "Find a store" on any brick & mortar company's web site, it makes me fill in a form with my address or zip code! Why can't I have the option on my mobile device to pass &geolocation=34.1234,-37.3415 in the URL?

skierpage

I want this on my iPhone. Navizon does this for $25, but free is better.

LookitsJ

Works on my blackberry curve (ATT), I am just inside the light blue circle.

keepr

Just tried this and it's remarkably accurate considering the size of my city.

Cingular 8525

Cerixus

Works nicely on my T-Mobile WM6 Dash. The circle of uncertainty is a bit large, but probably within a reasonable size to find yourself if you're totally, if you can see a street sign.

As others have said, it's not a GPS replacement -- I actually have a Holux Bluetooth GPS doohickey that pairs nicely with the Dash and works well with GMM and Live Search -- but it'll do in a pinch, if you don't feel like turning on the separate GPS unit.

cjc

Doesn't work on my Sanyo M1

jkadin

My location is currently unavailable, too :(
Sprint 6700, WM6. No dice :(...

davidfbecker

Ha ha, take that Verizon! Disabling a perfectly fine built in GPS chip in my new Blackberry Pearl so they could charge $9.99 a month for the service!

JoshS