S60 3rd edition and JSR-179

[gregatmdl]

Hello All,

After reading through the Nokia developer docs and some posts in this forum, I'm a bit confused as to what extent the S60 3rd edition phones natively support the JSR-179 Location API.

It looks like all S60 3rd edition phones support the API, but what is not clear to me is whether, say, an N80, can provide location information without an external GPS receiver. How can I tell whether external hardware is required? How can I tell if the phone will get position information based on the network? Is carrier cooperation always required for network position information?

Frankly, it's all a bit confusing and quite frustrating that I can't find anything definitive that says what is and is not possible with JSR-179 on Nokia phones. I want to experiment with JSR-179 and was about to purchase an N80, but now, after reading these forums, I'm worried that it'll be useless for position information without adding on an external GPS.

Any definitive answers or pointers to that info would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Greg

[hartti]

Using the location API requires that the device can get the location infomation through some "provider". The provider can be (if GPS is not built-in) an external GPS module or carrier can provide that infromation. Not all carriers provide location information so your best bet is external GPS receiver.

You need to define criteria for the location provider which is used to select the best suited location provider technology for you if multiple locationing methods are available.

Network-based positioning requires that your carrier provides that information. There is also an open source effort called PlaceLab to create a free database of base station locations. This is outside JSR-179. Also you need to be able to get the CellID from the network, for which there is no API in Java (there is a workaround for that, which is used also in PlaceLab)

Hartti