[iPhone question!] How granular is the GPS on the 3G?

David Pogue, in his NYT review, wrote, “Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do with the G.P.S. According to Apple, the iPhone’s G.P.S. antenna is much too small to emulate the turn-by-turn navigation of a G.P.S. unit for a vehicle, for example.”

I would think then that for geocaching purposes, where you might want resolution down into the single-digit number of feet, it’s probably not going to work so great.

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Which is a weird thing to say, I think. I use a blackberry with Google Maps. And yah, it can do the big 1,200m circle margin of error thing. But when driving, it updates live and is pretty doggone accurate. Zoom in closest and, in a strong EDGE signal area, it shows my exact position pretty well (down to the correct side of the street).

Yah, I know cell tower triangulation isn’t the same. And yah, it’s not always that accurate. Point is, it is very accurate some times. With the real GPS capability built into the iPhone, I’d tend to be optimistic.

If nothing else, you could play Monkey Ball whilst tearing up a particular geocache site looking for the prize/notebook/treasure chest/whatever.

Aw man ive always wanted to get into geocaching. Do you do that andrew?

Apple head Greg Joswiak denies accounts by David Pogue that the 3G’s GPS antenna is too small to deliver turn-by-turn navigation. Instead, says Joswiak, there are some ‘complicated issues’ preventing the software, though these may be overcome.

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That actually clears things up… for me, at least. GPS is GPS. If it can see enough satellites, the iPhone 3G should indeed be able to achieve the same resolution as any other off-the-shelf GPS device.

Not sure if some of Andrew’s geocaching expeditions include turn-by-turn directions… but if he’s just trying to get to a certain lat/long, I think the iPhone will help him get there directly.

Any geocachers out there got a say?

I think it’s gonna work just fine. If not right now, perhaps just a software update away.