Originally Posted by
gregf83
Blackberries have gps receivers but that doesn't guarantee that they will provide correct elevation in a plane. It would be reasonable for the the receiver to assume the user is on the ground and thus require only xy coordinates vs xyz coordinates. The GPS needs one less satellite to be visible this way and may perform a little better. It's likely why your phone displayed you on the ground when you were in a plane.
Obviousy its reasonable to suspect that the user would be on the ground... we were doing it more to try to figure out what was really going on since a cheap handheld GPS receiver is in the vacinity of $500, I thought it odd that these phones would have the same capability with some simple software cracks.
This article more clearly identifies what I was getting at.
http://www.wmexperts.com/articles/gp..._tutorial.html
How there is a difference between I guess an "actual" GPS and what is in most "GPS enabled" devices these days. It seems that the only time the phone is able to work like a "real" gps is when its not able to receive regular cell service, otherwise, it's getting some of the data via the tower.
My biggest reason I guess was just to try and figure out the total capability of sports GPS's were vs. a cell phone vs. a "real" GPS. It seems like with the former 2 its little more than software? And the latter is a little bit of software and hardware...