Despite their emphatic denial, Google appear to be planning to bring GPS to the recently announced Google Local For Mobile.
Clever clogs, Cristian Streng has been digging around in his Google Local For Mobile .jad, the downloaded binary file for his Nokia 6600 and he found the following “GpsEnabled: false.” Well I never.
Just to refresh you, here’s what Google say in their FAQ
Does Google Local for mobile use GPS to figure out where I am?
Google Local for mobile doesn’t use any GPS technology, even if your phone has a built in GPS location device.
It looks like v2.0 could well be different.
Currently the users of the service have to key in or select the desired starting and destination points, and press a key to mimic their progress in the real world. Using GPS eradicates the need to tell the system where you are, or update the system to your progress.
With GPS Google’s service becomes a huge threat to many of the companies that already sell handheld navigation system like TomTom and Navicore. The disadvantage of Google’s approach is that the phone must be connected to the network, racking up data charges for the mobile owner. This disadvantage vanishes when the phone user had an all inclusive data rate.
The GPS feature could well be waiting for a second release of the service, or waiting for next-gen handsets with aGPS built into them, to become more widely used.
Google isn’t alone in their desire to provide mapping services to mobiles. Guy Kewney tells us that there have been mutterings about Yahoo Maps linking up with mobile phone companies too.