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hacksugar: Putting iPod touch GPS to the test with roqyBluetooth
A few weeks ago, I wrote lovingly about GPS. For me, at least, GPS on the iPhone OS family is often more about the social features that location unlocks than about simple positioning. With GPS, you can track your trips to share with friends and family, see what people have been Yelp-ing about, and find what's happening right now, right near you. When I heard about GPS for iPod touches, I got excited. For a while, I've been reading about roqyBluetooth (aka roqyBT). It's a system hack that allows you to connect an iPod or an early model iPhone to an external GPS receiver over Bluetooth. Yesterday, I finally got a chance to put RoqyBT to the test. Retailing for 8 Euros (about $11), roqyBluetooth is a jailbreak application sold through Cydia and the Rock Store. Its Bluetooth stack implementation hooks into the iPod's Core Location system services. In use, any application that normally queries for Core Location data gains access to the Bluetooth-originated GPS data (including location, elevation, and so forth) just as it would normally receive WiFi positioning or, in the case of the iPhone, cell tower positioning. It works. I bought a simple Bluetooth GPS unit from Semsons.com for about $20. After installing roqyBluetooth and pairing it with my BT GPS, I was able to run Trailguru and track my progress through several trips as I walked and drove to various locations. The Trailguru results were similar to the trails I recorded simultaneously on an iPhone 3GS using the same software. All in all, success. So what were the ups and downs of the process?
