Comm manager and GPS

[Asphyx]

Now that we have a rom available to enable the internal GPS (much thanks to DCD!) would it be possible to add a GPS enable/disable icon to the HTC Comm Manager?

Or is this even necessary?

[sfld]

from what ive heard... once you shut your phone to standby it closes the gps port. some people claim with no apps running such as google maps or live search that by going to ##debug#... it still shows their gps location. If i had a bet and we made a button that did that, all it would do is disable the LOCATION ON setting in your phone settings. Then when you want to turn it on.. you would turn that back to location on

[dcd1182]

i havent played with commmanagers much, but assuming we can point a button at a mortscript, theres already quite a few gps startup morts floating around. im sure we could modify the start script to be a toggle.. let me look around

edit: check out talynone's thread here (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=363431) and see if any of the launcher-type apps he linked might give us a start. the real project is coming up with what you want to call your gps toggle, i think sticking that in the commmanager will be easy at that point.

[Asphyx]

Thanks guys,

Really there isn't anything to shut off technically...it's not like shutting off Bluetooth transmitter which drains battery power...

But a toggle to switch bet location on and "911 only" would be helpful for those who have friend tracking apps and don't want to be located at certain times.

It's really a very low priority to have I must admit, but it would be nice to know I didn't have to dig deep into phone settings to toggle that off.

I'll look around for something that already toggles this for those who have built in GPS stock and WM6, And post whatever I find here.

[vernk]

friend tracking apps?

[Asphyx]

there are a few of those services like Loopt that will let friends track you via GPS (probably AGPS)....


https://loopt.com/loopt/sess/index.aspx
It's available for Sprint now...

there are also Parental trackers out there for Smartphones but I have never seen one for the PPC yet...
They also use the location on settings in the smartphones which is really the capability we are enabling with the new radio.

So a quick way to turn location on and off seemed like a good idea.

[hohnan]

Thanks guys,

Really there isn't anything to shut off technically...it's not like shutting off Bluetooth transmitter which drains battery power...

But a toggle to switch bet location on and "911 only" would be helpful for those who have friend tracking apps and don't want to be located at certain times.

It's really a very low priority to have I must admit, but it would be nice to know I didn't have to dig deep into phone settings to toggle that off.

I'll look around for something that already toggles this for those who have built in GPS stock and WM6, And post whatever I find here.

If there isn't anything to turn on or off, then why do I need to run AstroGPSLauncher to get the sats up for TomTom? Or is this just making a connection that already is live and leads TomTom to it?

P.S. I have seen CommManagers with a GPS icon in the past. Maybe even on one of your ROM's dcd.

[Asphyx]

Well hohnan - It's very different situation than the other things you turn on and off in the Comm Manager...

IE: when you turn off Bluetooth your really turning off the transmitter and shutting down the port (com usually) that the receiver uses to send data it recieves to the device...but the receiver stays on.

The GPS location off feature is similar in the respect that it does not transfer data it receives to the rest of the phone because the com port is shut down. There is no radio transmitter being used at all. I'm willing to bet that they use a single Radio receiver for all the radio signals the unit can see (Cell BT WiFi GPS). So by shutting location to 911 only your GPS is still receiving Sat data and running (cause it can see the sat transmissions) but it simply doesn't send the data anywhere as there is no port to communicate with.


I think the primer app your running is simply initializing the communications between the radio and the phone so that Tom Tom can use it.

I suspect in due time both Tom Tom and Garmin will be more aware of the built in GPS settings of WM6 and negate the need to run something else before it will work.