Eric,
KDDI/AU sells almost no mobile phones without GSP, even low-end
phones targeting 12 year old school girls have GPS and a range
of built-in/preloaded location-based mobile services and
navigation services built-in.
DoCoMo and Vodafone on the other hand sell almost no phones
with GPS, however DoCoMo does have location based services
intensively woven into i-mode.
overall location based services in Japan are very very developed,
and will develop even more when in a few years time almost
all Japanese mobile phones will have GPS compulsory.
We have a report about location based mobile services in Japan
if you are interested in more market details:
http://www.eurotechnology.com/store/location/
I am also just about to write a blog on these issues here:
http://www.eurotechnology.com/blog/
it'll be ready in a few hours.
Hope this helps.
Gerhard
Mr. Eric Hildum wrote:
> Actually, Qualcomm has a nice write-up of the system they deployed in
> Japan, and the implication was that it was used for handset based LBS
> services. Isn't there a map service which gives a map based on
> current location and orientation? GPS has actually been in (some)
> Japanese handsets for a while (3+ years).
> While there may not be a UI deployed to access the GPS info, such as
> on the Motorola i710 and i730 series, usually there is an API that
> allows access (though it may require a signed MIDlet to access) - at
> least on phones distributed in the US. Not sure about the current
> situation in Japan.
> Eric Hildum
> eric.hildum@mobileplay.com
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Gerhard Fasol, PhD Eurotechnology Japan K. K.
http://fasol.com/ http://www.eurotechnology.com/
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Received on Thu Oct 27 11:56:45 2005