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Google’s $179 Moto G puts every single cheap Android phone to shame

arstechnica.com

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Re: Google’s $179 Moto G puts every single cheap Android phone to shame

#261

Post by nl »

acchow wrote: post #257
nl wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So many ways to answer that... Have you heard of GPS to POI? How do you think Google gets your location when you look up the weather (and see later for a discussion of network location vs GPS location)? Your GPS location is useful, but you need to convert it to a named location to get the weather. There are some services that do that for you.. but then you need to send your location - which seems to be what you want…

> Your GPS location is useful, but you need to convert it to a named location to get the weather. Why would any app need a named location? Seems trying to match a string is way harder than finding the nearest weather data by coordinates...

In those cases, doesn't querying by location sharing your location?

Re: Google’s $179 Moto G puts every single cheap Android phone to shame

#262

Post by sharpneli »

nl wrote: post #261
acchow wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your GPS location is useful, but you need to convert it to a named location to get the weather. Why would any app need a named location? Seems trying to match a string is way harder than finding the nearest weather data by coordinates...

In those cases, doesn't querying by location sharing your location?

Unless all the weather data from pretty much everywhere is streamed constantly to your phone. Then you can do the query by location effectively offline.

Re: Google’s $179 Moto G puts every single cheap Android phone to shame

#263

Post by bcraven »

alan_cx wrote: post #26

Well, all I can say is that until last week I was still using my Nokia 6500c. This Moto G is the fist smart phone that for me does enough to warrant the price; UK £120, unlocked. So, I bought one.

I am in the same boat. Had it for a few weeks now and loving it!

Re: Google’s $179 Moto G puts every single cheap Android phone to shame

#264

Post by fidotron »

nl wrote: post #261
acchow wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your GPS location is useful, but you need to convert it to a named location to get the weather. Why would any app need a named location? Seems trying to match a string is way harder than finding the nearest weather data by coordinates...

In those cases, doesn't querying by location sharing your location?

Google aren't providing the weather APIs.

The problem is using Google Play Services for location instead of GPS (the satellites).

Re: Google’s $179 Moto G puts every single cheap Android phone to shame

#265

Post by nl »

fidotron wrote: post #264
nl wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In those cases, doesn't querying by location sharing your location?

Google aren't providing the weather APIs. The problem is using Google Play Services for location instead of GPS (the satellites).

Google Play Location Services are backed with GPS and/or network location(!?)

It's just a wrapper that has some nice functionality around trying to preserve battery use by sharing location requests between the multiple applications that need it. See [1] for the details. Here is a useful quote:

Applications cannot specify the exact location sources, such as GPS, that are used by the LocationClient. In fact, the system may have multiple location sources (providers) running and may fuse the results from several sources into a single Location object.

How do you think Google works out your location otherwise?

[1] https://developer.android.com/reference/com/google/android/g...

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