Greg In The Desert

Wow, I’m really ruining my reputation as a Apple Fan Boy and early adopter. I didn’t buy the first iPhone when it first came out (instead waited for the 16GB version) and I haven’t purchased a iPhone 3G. I had no desire to stand in line for one on launch day. I’m not really a people person and I’m not interested in socializing with strangers.

I did look into it last week. The Albuqueruque Apple Store was out and while I was in Portland for a few days, all three of those stores were out.

I can live with the EDGE network speeds. The killer feature for me is the GPS. Since there are no real GPS realtime navigation software out for the iPhone, yet, I think I will hold out. If I hold out long enough a 32GB version might be available.

Since the bluetooth on iPhone is reserved for only wireless headset they actually used WiFi to transmit data between the GPS receiver and iPhone. To make this possible the GPS receiver integrates a processor, Wi-Fi antenna, and even a microSD card slot to store the maps. The navigation software itself will also be accesssed via the WiFi GPS receiver using a web interface. The navigation software used and customized for LocoGPS is iGO 8.

Impressive young Skywalker, Hopefully they will ditch the web interface now that the SDK is available. Hopefully Apple opens up the bluetooth interface so this sort of overdone interface isn’t needed.