I downloaded however, the new version with its new My Location feature which apparently uses the location of the cell towers I am linked to, to derive my location within 1700 metres of where I am. At least, that is what it seems to try and do but it is somewhat poor at it in my experience over the last week.
Now, my reference to 1700 metres is maybe because of where I am normally running around. I keep to the outskirts of London, and spend much of my time in deepest Kent. Cell towers are not regular like they would be in the city and so the accuracy is quite poor. That would be ok considering, but the other issue I have had is that at times the accuracy has been out by ten miles or more. All I can believe about that is that my phone has a habit of staying locked to a cell tower which is a long distance away, further than my local one, making it seem that I am closer to Faversham when I am actually on the top of Detling Hill nearer to Maidstone.
The other issue is that the software gives a location effectively as a point in time and does not do well at tracking your location as you move. This is not just with the My Location feature. Enabling the GPS mechanism with an external GPS unit did not give near real time movement on the map. In fact, it tended to give up which was awkward when you were trying to figure out where you are.
In addition, there seems to be a habit of getting an error in the data communication. Now this could be down to T-Mobile, but I doubt it as it works pretty well for everything else. The error though is made doubly worse because when it is experienced, the application quits. Not the most useful method of degrading service.
Other than that (!) the My Location feature has proven interesting and I need to see how it will work in a built-up area with more cell towers, to see if the problems I have seen are removed or reduced in impact. It certainly helps to get yourself into roughly the right area to start trying to track your own location according to the normal methods of reading road names and trying to find them on the 2.8″ screen. And the one thing that is really cool… being able to see satellite and aerial imagery of basically anywhere in the world, wherever I am. Pity it does not match what my Father thought it showed – live real time imagery, although that does worry me regarding privacy…
I would like however to be able to determine the location of other mobile phones in my family group on GMM. Now that would be cool.]]>
