Shareloc's blog - Navizon's community weblog

TV commercial for firmware 1.1.1

For those who were to young to remember, here's the original ad that Apple ran during the Superbowl in 1984.

iPhone v1.1.1: is it legal?

Let's say you buy a new house After all these years, you now have a place you can call home. What a good feeling...

So you decide to make some renovations: you paint the rooms in your favorite color, you put nice accessories on the walls, a high tech kitchen with all fancy new gadgets, etc...

But one night, the previous owner breaks in your house, removes everything  and puts your house exactly  the way it was before you bought  it.

Then when you realize what he's done, he turns to you with a little smile and tells you "I didn't like the way it was. So I undid everything."

That's his right, isn't it? At least that's the way Steve Jobs sees it.

Sept 27th 2007 - The day freedom was silenced

    Yangon, Burma                          Cupertino, CA

Navizon now available for the iPhone

A version of Navizon Virtual GPS is now available for the iPhone.

For those of you who are not familiar with this stuff, Navizon is a positioning system that triangulates signals from Wifi access points and Cellular towers.

It is based on a collaborative database where users who have a GPS device can contribute data on Cell towers and Wifi APs locations that will let other members of the community simulate a Virtual GPS on their phone.

The best way to install Navizon is through Installer.app (if you have it installed on your iPhone already). 

If you don't have Installer.app installed on your iPhone, here's a tutorial (for dummies) that will tell you how to install it.

You can also download the zip file directly.

Once Navizon is installed on your iPhone you will need to turn on Wifi (you can connect to a Wifi network if you want but that's not mandatory). You will also need to create a login. And that should be it!

Just click on the "Locate Me" button and see where Navizon puts you on the map. If you want to increase your chances of getting a good position fix, it is recommended to try twice (at least on the first attempt) since the Wifi scanner takes some time to be fully operational.

                     
This application will be fully functional for 15 days. If you like it, you can purchase it for $24.99. But for those of you who of you who may wonder what this money is used for, it isn't going in our pocket. It is used to pay the ones who do the hard work of collecting the data without whom this service wouldn't be possible. So by purchasing the software you are helping them make the service better. All of this is explained here.

But if you want, you can easily be one of them and start collecting this money. Just connect Navizon to a real GPS device (doesn't work on the iPhone since it cannot be connected to a real GPS. but it works on almost any other phone or laptop) and start driving around.

Update: if you have any comments or technical questions, please post them on the forum since this blog doesn't support threads and makes it very hard to assist anyone having technical issues. Many thanks in advance.

Update 2: If you want to be able to use Navizon, don't update your iPhone Firmware to 1.1.1

Keywords: WiFi Positioning, Cell Tower triangulation, GPS, iPhone, Cell phone masts, Wifi Geolocation, Cellular geolocation