TIME magazine’s piece on iPhone’s ‘secret ingredient’ plays-up the Apple-Google alliance suggesting we should expect to “see everything on Macs… migrate into mobile applications” for the iPhone.

After a study showed that there was a high degree of variability in wireless location accuracy as users moved from geography to geography, the FCC has proposed that accuracy standards be tightened to the Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP - of which there are over 6000 in the US) level, instead of today which has generally been at a state level.  This will have a major impact on how many carriers design their network and deploy their location infrastructure, since up to now they've been able to essentially hide areas with poor accuracy by averaging those readings with higher accuracy ones such as from dense urban areas.

The good news for LBS is that it will make accuracy levels much more predictable (and hopefully better).  The FCC also submitted for comment (not a recommendation at this point) some other proposals, notably having a single, technology neutral location accuracy requirement for both network-based and handset-based technologies, and that providers of interconnected VoIP services that can be used at more than one location must meet the same accuracy standards as do commercial mobile radio services. 

They also said there were two other areas that their engineers are going to look at: (1) methods for carriers to improve in-building location accuracy; and (2) the use of hybrid technology solutions to increase location accuracy and address shortcomings of current technologies.  The Commission noted its intent to examine and publicly report on both issues as quickly and efficiently as possible, so as not to unduly delay the issuance of a final order.  These guys have been busy!  For more info, visit LBS Globe.  

Back in January, I struggled to make sense of Motorola’s announcement to abandon internal ViaMoto navigation application efforts and partner-up with Destinator and Jentro for an alternative 3^rd party solution. That fogginess lifted a bit with Destinator’s PR yesterday.

First of all, ViaMoto’s main check-writer was Avis who now offers Where2 eliminating hopes of a US navigation power-play. Secondly, the Chinese automotive industry boom presents an opportune time to discount any on-board PND momentum that might arise, and with Moto eyeing emerging D2C models popular there, they need a partner with a strong Chinese presence. Lastly, there are other emerging competitive threats in China for Moto previously mentioned.

Despite Eric Schmidt’s dismissal of the Google phone rumor, Michael Jones, CTO of Google Earth just demonstrated an Apple iPhone-Google Maps widget at Where 2.0 and reiterated that mobile is crucial, while further emphasizing CRIB nations (a majority of the world’s population) will discover the Web world through their phones. Previous dismissal aside, Jones' insinuation suggests gPhone is imminent, and I suspect the device will be free/ad subsidized in economies where majorities can’t afford least-common-denominator Motorola or Nokia featurephones. I'll limb it for the fools errand duty as well and give gPhone 8-12 months to arrive.      

Sporting their new black WHERE tees, the Boston crew took the stage at Where 2.0 with one key message for this audience of hackers, artists, publishers, and entrepreneurs—“Carriers are our friends, they don’t need to be yours”. Where 2.0 attendees and speakers notoriously slam mobile Carrier-gatekeepers who hold location close to their chests and hinder the creative development and innovation found in this auditorium. With any luck, uLocate put an end to the undereducated rant. So go for it, extend your website with location-smarts on mobile devices, build a widget, or publish your KML or GeoRSS out to mobile devices. You’re officially abstracted!

Japan's DoCoMo and KDDI are teaming to offer an early warning earthquake alert system to mobile subscribers. While the service will target email alert distribution based on impacted geography, expect to see cell sites used to broadcast alerts versus location pings on impacted subscribers—server-centric Location query loads will choke the network.

There’s a scary story out of Palm Bay, Florida about a wacko who outfitted his wife’s car with a GPS, tracked her to her boyfriends house, and shot and killed her upon discovering she was cheating.

Resistance is Futile. Perhaps the Borg’s next mystery mobile move comes following public executive confirmation that mobile devices will substitute PCs for online access in booming CRIB (China, Russia, India, and Brazil) economies, and following blogosphere rumors every week about a mobile device, a network, or a real-time spectrum auction system for wireless-broadband powered ad campaigns. With all this noise, it’s impossible to guess Google’s next move. That said we know assimilation is coming to mobile, and when it does I expect most will analyze the benefits introduced and measure the negative impacts on the mobile industry economy and society. If it’s another self-serving strategy to secure additional mediums, capture consumer constancy and revenue, while reducing mainstay players to commodity compost, I’ll expect ugly repercussion despite the fact that as consumers we’ll love it—no mater what it is.

At Where 2.0, Aaron Roller said Motion-Based wants a developer community to help the service diversify and capture more users within specific outdoor communities. A Web services API will launch with garmin.developer.com later this year in 3Q07. This effort appears to address the need for community control, customization, and personalization of the application.

When NIM released press in early May citing their 1 million subscriber tally for VZ Navigator, I second guessed the virtue of the walled garden bash-fest many innovators currently partake in. After all, NIM and Verizon demonstrated launching a hit quickly and gaining a significant subscriber following is possible with marketing muscle and solid sales-support. To date, I am not aware of any other pay-for mobile LBS consumable, in any global geography, penetrating 1 million subs within a similarly short timeframe.

The VZ Navigator success is great for NIM, but if you’re a developer struggling for preferential Carrier-treatment, vying for deck visibility with Carrier power-marketing behind your app, and you scrap for mindshare over existing competitive strongholds, well then you naturally jump on the wallop-the-walled-garden bandwagon and whine about a lack of openness and open APIs for the long tail ecosystem of which you belong. The truth is though… you aspire to become a blockbuster bread-winner instead of a niche-product traveling salesman with an underground clientele base—it’s why you grumble about ‘openness’. If you’re one of the elite few on Verizon’s LBS deck like NIM, you don’t complain. Whimpering for more openness supports ‘the ecosystem group’ who watches and waits for you to stumble and loose the loot you’ve labored to earn.

In today’s world of single-purpose dedicated-use mobile downloads, distributed within limited-choice Carrier walled garden shelf-spaces, there are few that win, many that loose, and nothing in between. Winners play the political brownnose game and do whatever it takes to win mindshare and earn the top-dog promotional spot on the walled-garden deck. The niche application-provider-losers retaliate and champion alternative direct-to-consumer distribution models deliberately designed to bypass and devalue the deck directory. So what’s wrong with this picture? Where’s the happy medium? Can niche application aggregates win along with top-dog deck placements?

In half the time it took Verizon and NIM to celebrate their 1 millionth subscriber Widsets secured 1 million users of their own. Devoid of TV ad marketing, pricey pamphlets in retail stores, and special promos at sponsored events, Widsets reached identical penetration rates in a fraction of the time with a webpage, a blog, and a viral community. If you’re not familiar with Widsets, it’s a Nokia brainchild mobile widget offering distributed directly to consumers and available for download from the Widsets website. Widsets aggregates various content services and applications and distributes them within one free download, with future plans to subsidize the offering with sponsored ads. While only several Widset services are location-enriched today, assume future widgets to include location-smarts baked into more content as handset-based carrier-independent location becomes more widely available on devices. Despite limited marketing, Widsets D2C distribution model works, has reached niche markets, found the happy medium, and won 1 million through aggregate offerings. Who’s next?