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Great idea ! Has been on my list for a while as well ;-)

> Originally I tried it in JavaScript, but iOS strips lat and lon info from photos when they're picked with a file input field.

Yes, that is how far I got. Good you went a step further.

I think there are options for expanding: because a photo is easier to share then a location plus it tells a lot about the location itself. Better then some numbers of shortened url.

Combined with compass navigation the user does not need internet (Apple, Google maps) to still be able to navigate to a location.

And why share just one photo ? Share a collection: interesting buildings in a city, or the best places with cakes (based on just the pictures of those cakes :-).

I still think a concept to think about more. Please continue.

2 comments

Thanks! That's cool you tried the same thing!

Cool idea about the collections.

Another extension of it I also thought about is a version with some kind of node.js backend that's a little bit like Yo except whenever you and a friend have it open it points you at each other so you can find each other on foot as long as you have a decent internet connection and good GPS accuracy.

why don't they need Internet?

As long as you already have the app and photo on your phone it just uses the compass and GPS, which are both sensors built in to the iPhone and don't require internet.

sorry. I'm an idiot and didn't think about gps seperately from internet

It's a pretty good point actually! Because Airplane Mode disables GPS on the iPhone.

That's a little odd. Isn't GPS generally completely passive? That is, it should not be possible to cause any sort of interference.

I thought it was passive, too. I've googled a little in the past and some people say it's in the same chip as the cellular radios (and the whole chip gets knocked out in Airplane Mode). Others say the amplification of signals necessary could cause interference.

A radio receiver often uses a signal of an intermediate frequency: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermediate_frequency

So a receiver that would appear functionally to be passive could still conceivably cause interference.

Cool. Was not aware of the usage of intermediate frequencies in radio receivers. Thanks for the knowledge :)

Phones often use A-GPS, which includes an active component: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_GPS

This is true, but it seems like it should not be hard to disable AGPS in airplane mode.