Way back when, car phones were the new in thing. Then came cell phones (they could actually fit into your pocket!). After cell phones came smartphones. The first gen versions of smartphones were bulky, slow and black and white — Gross. Today we have iPhones, Blackberrys, Windows Mobile and Android phones (to name a few) that can do so much more than their older brothers and sisters from only a few years ago.
One of the biggest things to enter the cell phone market was GPS and aGPS. Both of these services provide the ability for the phone, service and people to know exactly where they are in real time. Scary, huh?
While location based technology can be freaky, it can also be a huge help to your everyday activities. I leave GPS turned off and use cell tower-based location (where your phone can approximate where you are based on towers around you) to find restaurants and machanics. But there is so much more than can be done with location.
Since I’ve been testing out the G1 from HTC, there is an amazing application called Locale that comes in the market for Android apps. This program lets me change almost every setting on the phone based on where I am. No location information is sent to any outside service so I have no fear of people tracking me.
It automatically turns on vibrate mode when I’m at work and turns the phone up louder when I’m out running (Hey, I run sometimes). For power-saving, I have the phone set to leave wifi turned off unless I’m at a place that I know has it available like National Mechanics or IndyHall. This means that I get faster web browsing without touching the configuration of the phone.
This is a location-based application that I believe that everyone could sink their teeth into. It doesn’t share where I am, it doesn’t interrupt me while I’m in a meeting and it provides a service to me that I otherwise would have had to work for — Changing my own ring volume? No way!
What do you think are some other great uses of location-based services or applications? Restaurant reviews? Movie listings? Why would you use them in the first place?
Tags: agps, blackberry, car phone, cell phone, g1, gps, iphone, locale, location, tower, windows mobile, Wireless
