The Location driver..

I have made the point a few times that for Geospatial services to belcome really mainstream, the ability to determine a users/devices location needs to be a standard function. The two latest mobile phone “operating systems” the iphone’s version of  MacOS and Android already have this, and we are seeing more and more location aware applications.

So it was no surprise that Microsoft announced last week that Windows 7 will also have a core location API, this is still a big deal as it has the potential of making location aware applications really commonplace at last, finally reducing the level of complexity for the developer to that of using a software driver.

I am concerned with some early reports as to the ability to control with enough granularity when  your location is made available, but hopefully that will imporve over the next year before the software is released.

All eyes then on Macworld in January, I would be surprised if we don’t know see a location API as a new feature of Snow Leopard. 

Written and submitted from the Google Office, London.