[bobram]

Originally Posted by OMJ

well i'll be damned...turned on wifi, not connected though, launched google, hit the my location icon on bottom right, went very close to where I am.....odd

I'll be damned too, turned on wifi without connecting to a network and google maps gets my location to within 90m without GPS! This is even more precise than than the old ROM was locating (1000m) without GPS. Weird stuff.

Originally Posted by Plutonium0587

I finally figured out how to make my AGPS work. I am using the latest ROM OMJ released (the 6.5.5 one) with Google Maps 4.0 installed to the storage card. I also had that Aloqa program installed. I ran the Aloqa program first and it uses GPS and Wifi/CellID so it turns on your wifi and data connection. I turned off the GPS function and it still found my location. I then went to Google Maps and it found my location with no GPS turned on. My Location in Sense actually found my weather location too for the first time ever. The kicker seems to be the Wifi. It has to be turned on to work, but NOT necessarily connected to anything, just on. I have no idea why this is but if I turn wifi off, I get no location.

Thanks for discovering this! Now what does this mean?

I just did a little experiment, I disabled the EVDO connection and the phone's radio by turning on flight mode, and then only enabled WiFi but didn't connect, and google still gets my location to within 90m.

So how the heck is Google Maps getting my location with only the WiFi radio turned on but not connected to any network? Wtf?

EDIT: Ok, I think I was a little too excited there, lol. I cleared Google's cache by reseting it from the menu and ran the same procedure, this time it could not locate me, so I think it was pulling my location from the cache. In other words it still requires an ACTIVE network connection to locate you without GPS.

EDIT 2:

If you disable WiFi with Google Maps open, my location will cease to function (it will still show your location, but will not update). Re-Enabling Wifi will restore my location's updates.

Here's some info about "my location" from Google:

The My Location service takes information broadcast from mobile towers near you to approximate your current location on the map-it's not GPS, but it comes pretty close. We are always working to improve our coverage, but we're still in beta and there may be some areas where our coverage is incomplete; if you get an error message when trying to access your location, don't worry---it should work in other nearby locations.

If you do have a GPS-enabled device, My Location can actually complement it. My Location kicks in faster than GPS in most cases, so you can access your location even faster on the map. It also works reliably indoors (unlike GPS) and doesn't drain your phone battery at the rate that GPS does.