I just read this article http://symbian-freak.com/news/009/11...r_for_ovi.html and i was wondering if the maps booster will be ported over for maemo 5 (n900)...after reading couple of reviews, and most of them says that the locking of gps does take a while as is the case with most of nokia phones...this should help dramatically!!!

Thank for the input in advance,

Priyank

Its a sort of Assisted GPS, but uses WiFi instead of cellular towers, for a little background. I'm wondering how much better it is than normal GPS or A-GPS.

glad to see you reading the Freak pages, btw. Hopefully one of the devs can give you a hand.

Yea since i pre-ordered this phone, i've had symbian-freak, maemo-freak and couple others on my bookmark so i can stay upto date on all the info...haha...if there are others besides this wonderful maemo.org, plz dont hesitate from sharing :P

thanks,
Priyank

Watch this video, http://www.skyhookwireless.com/flash...howitworks.swf

It's basically similar to A-GPS, instead of using cellular networking to find position of the satellites for faster fix, it users Wifi to help find the position of the phone.

This article is on the verge of libel.... Their marketing speech wants to push their agenda, so they talk down Nokia GPS. I've been using Ovi Maps on my N82 a LOT and it always performed very well, fast and precise.

Claiming themselves to be "operator of the world's most advanced location system" is ridicilous in itself. They use GPS and cell tower triangulation just like Nokia, then add their WiFi-Wardriving coverage which only adds 70% of the urban population in the USA/Canada and nothing else in the world. Wonder how they keep up with fast changing AP names and locations (moving, new hardware etc. etc.)
Perhaps it helps in the narrow skyscraper corridors of NYC, where you can't see a satellite but have plenty of WiFi.

Certainly the addition of this location service would be advantageous (and iirc, Nokia said they would be adding this in the future), but I can't see it realistically making any significant difference to the lock speed.

To elaborate, I assume that obtaining the wifi looking data is as fast as obtaining the cell triangulation, and I can't see the two being too difference. Also, my understanding is that the AGPS assistance data (at least that provided to the N810), took the form of almanac plus ephemerides for the location in question, but the granularity of the ephemerides is something >=50miles iirc, so any gain in accuracy from the wifi location service (assuming there are enough APs to actually make it more accurate than the cell tower method) would make no odds.

This does indeed sound promising, but living in Finland I must also be a bit skeptical as to how much use I might get out of this service.

Sure there's lots of WiFi networks here, but there's also stretches where a single phone can't reach a single network, which is the norm.

Above all, though, My biggest wish would be for Ovi Maps to jsut load up a little faster.

While using 3G I get a lock in about 10 seconds while indoors, I have not tried without 3G though.