Location Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

WSJ: Apple acquires WiFiSLAM indoor location tech startup

by Michael Rose (Mar 23rd, 2013)

In a reported $20 million acquisition deal, Apple has bought the "indoor GPS" company WiFiSLAM, according to the Wall Street Journal Digits blog. The startup, founded by Stanford CS grad & former Google coding intern Joseph Huang, offered a way to let smartphones find their location ...

Tractive uses GPS to track your pets

by Kelly Hodgkins (Jan 11th, 2013)

Most dogs and outdoor cats like to wander when they are left outside. Cats, especially, will disappear for the day on some adventure in your neighborhood. If you are concerned or curious about their travels, an upcoming product called Tractive will let you see where they go when they ...

How Yelp's flaws affect Apple Maps

by Mike Wehner (Nov 2nd, 2012)

It's been clear from the start that Apple Maps isn't perfect. In fact, in some instances it's proven to be downright broken. And while the blame ultimately lies at Apple's feet, it turns out that you -- yes, you -- might have played a roll in the new app's less-than-stellar debut. You see, ...

Friday Favorite: Satellite Eyes swaps out your OS X desktop wallpaper with satellite imagery of your location

by Kelly Hodgkins (Jun 22nd, 2012)

Sometimes you find an app that stands out because it's different and does something fun. One such app is Satellite Eyes from technologist and engineer Tom Taylor. It's a simple OS X app that sits in your menu tray and uses your location information to replace your desktop wallpaper with an ...

OpenStreetMap gets acknowledged in iPhoto credits

by Kelly Hodgkins (May 4th, 2012)

After iPhoto landed on iOS in March, people quickly discovered the app used OpenStreetMap data for the map tiles. At the time, there was no attribution given to OSM but that has changed in the latest version of iPhoto, which was released earlier this week. OpenStreetMap pointed out in a tweet ...

Apple using OpenStreetMap data in iPhoto for iPad

by Kelly Hodgkins (Mar 8th, 2012)

If you purchased the new iPhoto for iOS yesterday, you may be surprised by the map tiles in the app. As noticed by 512 pixels, they are not from Google Maps. After some initial confusion over the source of the map data, the OpenStreetMap Foundation confirmed that Apple is using map data from the ...

US senator Schumer calls for FTC investigation of Apple, Google

by Kelly Hodgkins (Mar 5th, 2012)

A Reuters report says US Senator Charles Schumer is asking the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Apple and Google over its handling of photos. A recent New York Times report discussed a privacy breach that lets any iOS app with location permission to access a user's photo album. A follow-up ...

Macworld | iWorld 2012: XMG Studios working on a location-based Ghostbusters game

by Mike Schramm (Jan 28th, 2012)

XMG Studio is an indie iOS developer in Toronto that's gotten to work with some very decidedly un-indie licenses. They have made a few popular and original iOS games already (including Cows vs. Aliens and Cannon Cadets), but lately they've been getting more and more involved in licensed work. They ...

Tidying up location contacts for Siri and Reminders

by Erica Sadun (Oct 24th, 2011)

My personal address book has no shame. I have contacts for people I haven't spoken to in years, contacts for people who I met at tech conferences, contacts for schools, for local stores, for repairmen, and so forth. It's one big old happy jumbled mess. I'm cool with that. When I want Siri and ...

OmniFocus gets iOS 5 location-based reminders

by Michael Grothaus (Oct 12th, 2011)

OmniFocus has updated its popular OmniFocus for iPhone and OmniFocus for iPad apps. The updates bring iOS 5 compatibility and the usual bug fixes, but they also bring a very cool new feature OmniFocus users are sure to love: Location Reminders. Using iOS 5′s geo-fencing APIs, both the ...

Grand Central Terminal Apple Store under construction now

by Mike Schramm (Aug 15th, 2011)

As you can see from the pictures above, the new Apple Store being put into New York's Grand Central Terminal is now under construction. The whole store will be encased in glass, and despite locals' concerns about the project, Apple's plan (which AppleInsider says was delivered to the MTA in ...

$99 iPad app dinged by Wired, drops price 90% for the day

by Michael Rose (Aug 4th, 2011)

We love a good App Store pricing story, and this one has a happy ending (mostly). Yesterday Wired picked up the scent of Autriv's SignMyPad Pro, which has a rather breathtaking price tag of $99. Since the non-pro version of the PDF-signing app -- which shares almost all its features -- is only ...

Video App Demo: Checkin+

by Victor Agreda, Jr. (Aug 2nd, 2011)

If you're looking for an app to combine checkins for Foursquare and Facebook Places try Checkin+ from the makers of IM+, a multi-protocol IM tool. Checkin+ will do just that, and adds the ability to see locations in a 2D map or 3D augmented reality view. Checkin+ will also allow you to see ...

Trover Mobile Discovery app re-launched today

by Mel Martin (Jul 28th, 2011)

Trover joins the ranks of free GPS-powered apps for the iPhone that can guide you intelligently to places of interest near you or while traveling the world. It has some interesting twists that make it unique, giving it kind of a feel of Instagram meets Yelp. Trover had a limited release that ...

Watch iPhone owners travel around Europe

by Kelly Hodgkins (Jul 15th, 2011)

Over 800 iPhone owners donated their location information to Michael Krell of Crowdflow. He took this data plotted it on a map and set it in motion. It's captivating to watch the firefly-like blips move here and there across the region. Check out the video below. [Via GigaOM] ...