It's a product in the same category (mobile OS) that has a feature (privacy preserving location measurement) that another product does not.
you aren't about to get the masses moving over
You are using a strawman there. That was not my purpose in posting. This is Hacker News; I'm sharing my experience, presumably, with other intellectually curious people who might be surprised to know that a rather obscure option exists that they might not know about.
GPS sucks terribly in many cases
I think this deserves some study. I don't see why, in theory, it would need to be the case; the GPSTest app seems to do an excellent job of tracking satellites and reaquiring. The first time I used it it took ~2 minutes. But every time since it's been immediate.
It may be cynical of me, but I think I can be forgiven if don't think either Google or Apple are incentivized to fix GPS acquisition times. Continual, passive scanning of the local EM environment is much more information rich for them, and constitutes a considerable surveillance advantage. Bluetooth scanning especially allows constant, dynamic update of every person you are around. So by using these systems you're not just violating your own privacy, but anyone around you.
So, despite the downvotes, I am very proud of my comment and believe it to be quite on topic. Thanks.
It's a product in the same category (mobile OS) that has a feature (privacy preserving location measurement) that another product does not.
you aren't about to get the masses moving over
You are using a strawman there. That was not my purpose in posting. This is Hacker News; I'm sharing my experience, presumably, with other intellectually curious people who might be surprised to know that a rather obscure option exists that they might not know about.
GPS sucks terribly in many cases
I think this deserves some study. I don't see why, in theory, it would need to be the case; the GPSTest app seems to do an excellent job of tracking satellites and reaquiring. The first time I used it it took ~2 minutes. But every time since it's been immediate.
It may be cynical of me, but I think I can be forgiven if don't think either Google or Apple are incentivized to fix GPS acquisition times. Continual, passive scanning of the local EM environment is much more information rich for them, and constitutes a considerable surveillance advantage. Bluetooth scanning especially allows constant, dynamic update of every person you are around. So by using these systems you're not just violating your own privacy, but anyone around you.
So, despite the downvotes, I am very proud of my comment and believe it to be quite on topic. Thanks.