Up until now, access to such data required reaching out and working directly with Verizon to obtain and use the information, on a case by case basis, something that didn’t happen much. The newly released APIs will change all of that, allowing developers more streamlined access and allowing added value service providers like Loc Aid and Location Labs to finally offer a complete coverage offering, allowing unified location based services across all tier one carriers in the U.S.

Why are folks like Loc Aid and Location Labs so excited about this development?  Well, the logic is that anyone who has always wanted to develop a location based services and deploy it to everyone in the country, has up until now been hamstrung by how to include the 90 million Verizon Wireless users into the mix.  It wasn’t an easy task.  But now this barrier is gone, or at least greatly lowered, and in theory at least so should all the excuses to not build a service… so let the flood of new services commence.

Ubiquitous availability is one part of the equation but so is price and availability of the type of location data that developers want and it’s still unclear how much of a barrier those present.

Verizon is offering location in two forms via its newfangled APIs, coarse location via cell ID good for a mile or two accuracy depending on where you are, and more granular location via GPS or WiFi, all available as a single fix or as a tracking session.  I’ve heard that in the past, that the cost to dip into this data generally ran from fractions of a cent for a coarse location and more like four cents for the more accurate stuff, or a few dollar CPMs up to $40 respectively per thousand if you’re a media person and this is how you view such things… not cheap stuff for a lot of applications.  However the verbiage around the Verizon NavBuilder Inside sitetalks about how “it’s the fastest way to add location based services to your apps for free”.  At the same time I’ve also heard folks like Loc Aid positioned as re -SELLERS of this data, so it’s still a bit unclear to to me if this is going to be free or if it’s something for sale.  Any help from a more tuned in  source here?

At the end of the day, these APIs certainly do solve some key problems of building location oriented applications for Verizon customers. The vast majority of phones, ie feature phones, will still be limited to the more coarse location accuracy of Cell ID, which will certainly still be a limiting factor for introducing many location oriented services.  But on the other hand, higher end smartphones on Verizon will be able to take advantage of always on, higher accuracy (Wi fi or GPS) positioning for extended sessions which for example could pave the way for hands free social check-in services that, after an initial approval, could register presence or check you in automatically.  If the user doesn’t need to regularly push a button to ‘check-in’ anymore will the whole concept of check-ins just slowly fade away and a mobile record of presence at place of sale take its place?

It was also interesting to note that location fixes are defined as Fast, Normal and Accurate…  a “Fast” fix is achieved in under 2 seconds, a “Normal” one up to 10 seconds and an accurate one, well 60 seconds or more.  Since location can apparently happen more behind the scenes, depending on how its implemented,  the user may in many instances be blissfully unaware of how long its taking to get this information for their use, but such lag times times could also pose to be a hurdle for services accustomed to working in times in microseconds… like say ad targeting and serving.

So while it seems that we have indeed taken a major step toward ubiquitous availability of of location here in the U.S. there is still a lot TBD here particularly around speed, accuracy and costs of this data, so while it may be there, everywhere… is it the kind that’s needed and at a cost thats affordable to developers of new services?

First the APIs currently available are for “Dynamic Search” which is a bit of a misnomer if you ask me. The “Dynamic” mostly just means that the results from the “search” are relevant to your location… so as your location changes so will the subsequent results from the “search” request. The “search” is not really a search as much as a filtering of the data from a single predefined database so as to only show data relevant to your location.

There is a widget type feature that allows a DashApp to be discovered and added directly to a Dash Navigation device directly from any website, rather than having to go through the MyDash service. Sure to be a popular viral marketing feature for app builders.

A limited number of HTML tags are also supported to allow application developers to control some of the look and feel of their data within the Dash device.
While all results are seemingly related to the users’ geographic location, results can be sorted by a variety of values not limited to distance, including by title, time/date, price and rating.

Elements of a response can include details such as title, description, time, phone, lat/long, street address, city, state, zip, distance from the user, price and rating.

It also seems that DASH is rightfully being quite judicious with the amount of data that it lets DashApps use, 5k per query it seems. At that rate I suppose they can allow users a fairly large amount of use, before they really start to eat into that pool of GPRS data.

The initial DashApps made available with the launch of the APIs include straightforward POI lookup services including real estate listing from Coldwell Banker and speed trap data from Trapster. Trapster includes the capability for device owners to report/submit new speed traps directly from their device. The weather service from WeatherBug and the BackTrax applications are less location sensitive but more dynamic. WeatherBug provides up to date weather condition and forecasts in your area, while BackTrax lets users look up the name of the last three songs played on all the radio stations in your area. The final inaugural application is called myFUNABOL calendar which allow you to import electronic calendars from places like outlook into the device.

This is undoubtedly a huge step in the right direction, and is a mere trickle of the types of location aware information I think we can expect to see turn into a tidal wave in the not too distant future. Despite the widely reported problems the Dash devices have in terms of size and poor basic GPS performance, it certainly makes me want to run out plop down my $399, at least until the Nuvifone hits shelves. I certainly hope Garmin has been watching DASH carefully and has been taking notes.