There’s smoke, there’s fire, and then there’s a volcano the size of Olympus Mons on Mars erupting and turning the ground into an ocean of burning lava. Such is current state of speculation surrounding the 3G iPhone.
There’s really no point in beating around the bush at this point. The new iPhone is coming on Monday. You know it. I know it. We all know it. If Apple were not to announce it at this point, it would be perhaps the largest letdown in the history of the company. That simply won’t happen.
If you still have any doubts, look no further than some of the rumored 3rd party announcements that are beginning to trickle out as we approach the WWDC. What do a lot of them share in common? They are location-centric. While the current iPhone has location recognition capabilities for its Google Maps application, it is GPS technology that will be needed to be the lifeblood for these apps. The current iPhone does not have GPS. The new one almost certainly will.
We’ve already written about Whrrl, a location-based social network that was the first application to be accepted by Kleiner Perkins’ for the $100 million iFund. Is there really any question that this was built to use GPS?
Yelp is also apparently working on a native iPhone application that will be location-driven, according to CNET. This could be a game-changing app because it will utilize Yelp’s already expansive list of local establishment ratings and reviews and serve them to you automatically based on where you are. The application will be able to do this thanks to GPS.
There will be others as well. Brightkite, Loopt, Plazes, FireEagle — all of these are likely to be important, if not major, players as location technologies become more mainstream. Given the iPhone’s elegant user interface and great usability, it is likely to be the device that will lead the way. It just needs that GPS chip. And it will get it.
Twitter is the current leader in the micro-blogging/micro-messaging sphere, but if it doesn’t act soon to offer some sort of location capabilities, it will get left in the dust. Is anyone going to want to type out their location, when your phone can send it automatically for you? This could be something to watch for in the coming months as Twitter will likely be bogged down trying to fix its architectural problems.
The GPS-enabled iPhone is coming — is your application ready?
For more on location technologies, check out the post by Eric Karr, the vice president of location technologies at Loopt, on TechCrunch.
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Lost Remote » iPhone GPS, Yelp and local mobile said:
[...] following all these iPhone rumors. Suffice it to say, a new iPhone will be unveiled next week, and odds are that it will have built-in GPS. Think about that for a moment. There are a variety of sites out [...]
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[...] ‘Venturebeat‘ asks “The GPS-enabled iPhone is coming — is your application ready?” [...]
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Linkpost | 6.5.2008 | dailytechnews.info said:
[...] Location, location, location: The iPhone with GPS nears - Increasing number of GPS services are being [...]
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VentureBeat Goes iPhone Prediction Crazy | Hubdub PunditWatch said:
[...] 3G iPhone on Monday. We are recording two more predictions from VentureBeat. Namely that the new 3G iPhone will have GPS and that Apple will release a iPhone Nano like product which will be smaller and only support 2.5G [...]
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[...] for basically one phone, this is not a good sign. With the 3G iPhone, it could be an issue of being ready to support it or being left in the dust. Especially with competitors like Flixwagon and Kyte out there. Flixwagon in particular may be [...]
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Firmware leak firms up 3G iPhone specs » VentureBeat said:
[...] of the belief that location-based applications could be the next field to explode thanks to this new location-aware [...]
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[...] really believe this iPhone 3G with its combo of the Wi-Fi/Cell triangulation and now with GPS will lead to an explosion of location-based applications that are actually useful. Social networks like Whrrl (and I’m sure eventually Facebook and [...]
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The local revolution in mobile is coming. Verve Wireless is ready to spread the news » VentureBeat said:
[...] the inclusion of GPS in the new iPhone 3G, Apple is kicking off a wave of excitement about location-based services (LBS) — and the device isn’t even out yet. One aspect that may not be as sexy as [...]
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[...] going to be important for business such as local restaurants as well. Yelp and other competitors know this as well. The iPhone 3G could soon be the weapon they all battle [...]
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[...] The move comes at a time when location-based services are all the rage. [...]
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Thousand Tiny Tigers » Blog Archive » Struck with indecision over a restaurant choice? Let the iPhone 3G decide said:
[...] going to be important for business such as local restaurants as well. Yelp and other competitors know this as well. The iPhone 3G could soon be the weapon they all battle [...]
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[...] the buzz around location-based services (LBS) continues to grow, it’s often overlooked that for them to have any meaning there is one crucial component: A [...]
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[...] the last few months the 3G iPhone and its location-based service (LBS) potential gathered a lot of positive PR. Traction remains small, although some enterprise tracking [...]
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[...] also excited for the GPS functionality and all the possibilities that can open up for location-based services. The reviewers couldn’t really go into that since they didn’t yet have access to many [...]
12:18 am
Tapulous wants to be leading application ecosystem for the iPhone » VentureBeat said:
[...] The iPhone App Store is where people can download applications for their phones — these apps will work on the new iPhones, old iPhones and iPod Touches. Tapulous aims to offer developers a home to help them build applications and monetize them, Decrem says. One intern asked for a room to sleep as the only condition to build applications for Tapulous.Decrem is a great salesman. Previously, he co-founded Flock, the browser, and he pitched it so well in the valley that it became overhyped and it never lived up to its promise. Flock is still alive and kicking, but Decrem has moved on. At Tapulous, he’s trying to dampen his salesmanship this time around, he concedes, but it’s only minutes into the conversation before his enthusiasm picks up and he speaks in superlatives: “This will be bigger than the PC revolution,” he says of the iPhone, citing a statement made by John Doerr, a partner at venture firm Kleiner Perkins. He also cites an Piper Jaffray analyst prediction that there will be 90 million Apple smartphones in use by the end of 2009. He co-founded the company with Andrew Lacy and Mike Lee. He’s hired developers like Sean Heber, who became a legend of sorts when he built thirty applications for the iPhone in thirty days.On the surface, Twinkle (screenshot above, and more at bottom) is the most intriguing of Tapulous’ applications. It is a Twitter client, meaning users access the popular micro-messaging product Twitter on the app, pulling and pushing in tweets (Twitter messages) just like they would on Twitter. But Twinkle will support photos, and it is more flexible than rival Twitter client Twitteriffic because it allows people to message with other services besides Twitter. Twinkle allows people to see which user are located close to them (by tapping into the iPhone’s location technology). [...]
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Yahoo pushes its location platform Fire Eagle out of the nest so it can spread its wings » VentureBeat said:
[...] said it before, I’ll say it again: Location, location, location. As computing continues to go mobile it’s an increasingly important feature for many web [...]
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[...] Following the official roll out of Yahoo’s Fire Eagle location-based developer platform ten days ago, a lot of responses seemed to be, “yeah that’s great, but what happens when Google comes out with something similar?” Given Google’s dominant position on the web, that seems to be a fairly common response anytime a new web service or platform emerges. But location is particularly interesting since the first phones running Google Android are close to launching. In order to compete in mobile these days, location has to be a part of the plan. [...]
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iPhone apps like Whrrl preview the power of location, but there is far greater potential » VentureBeat said:
[...] could easily be turned off for private moments. But many, including Forrest in his piece, realize the power of being able to know when a friend is nearby. Or passively updating your location which can likewise tell your friends where you [...]
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[...] is a hot field in mobile computing. It makes sense, you’re on the move and more phones such as the Apple iPhone and T-Mobile’s Android-based G1 have global positions systems (GPS) built-in. Applications [...]