April 30, 2024

Personal Hotspot Sends GPS Data to Wi-Fi iPad?

Posted March 16, 2011 at 12:38pm by iClarified · 13552 views
Apple's new Personal Hotspot feature reportedly feeds GPS data to wi-fi iPad devices that are tethered to it, according to TabletMonsters.

Apple’s Wi-Fi only iOS devices have had location awareness for years via Wi-Fi location service that rely on identifying MAC addresses of nearby hotspots, and comparing those against a database of where those routers are located.

The location I’m getting on my Wi-Fi only iPad is most certainly not this. It is clear I am being fed GPS information from the phone, at what appears to be an interval of once a minute or so between refreshes (likely they didn’t do real time updating so as to go easy on the phone’s battery).


Although, one minute intervals isn't that often. It might be enough to sway some customers' purchasing decision towards the Wi-Fi iPad model instead of the 3G.

The feature can be seen demonstrated it the video below.

Read More [via 9to5Mac]