iPhones, Android phones, and BlackBerry and Palm devices. “Adding Skyhook into their Android platform is a great move from Motorola, and puts them ahead of the curve,” Greenstein said.
[Update: This paragraph and the next added 12:45 p.m., April 27, 2010] Carter Jernigan, a Cambridge, MA-based mobile developer who created a popular Android app called Locale that already uses Skyhook’s technology, says the Skyhook-Motorola announcement is “exciting” for Android developers and consumers alike.
“This announcement highlights the open nature of Android, where handset manufacturers can integrate better solutions, such as Skyhook, directly into their Android handsets,” says Jernigan. “Locale is a dynamic settings manager that can do things like turning off your ringer based on location. Having fast, accurate, and low-power location APIs is extremely important, since Locale is always running in the background. Thanks to our partnership with Skyhook and my own proprietary technology, the most recent Locale 1.1.1 update reduces battery usage to practically zero. Is Skyhook the best solution for exciting location-aware apps like Locale? Absolutely yes.”
Google’s own location-finding system works essentially the same way as Skyhook’s. But the venture-funded Boston startup, whose drivers have spent seven years criss-crossing millions of miles of roads in North America, Europe, and Asia gauging Wi-Fi signals, has a big head start. Morgan also argues that the algorithms Skyhook’s software uses to triangulate a device’s position based on the strengths of nearby Wi-Fi networks are more accurate than Google’s.
“When you combine better reference data with better algorithms, we outperform them,” says Morgan. “Having said that, they offer theirs for free.”
To convince Motorola to pay for location data—Skyhook licenses its system on a per-handset basis—the company had to show that its system would make the company’s smartphones far more useful when users are checking maps or using location-aware apps.
“They want their phones to be the best Android phones, and they are looking to pick the best-in-class components and services to do that,” says Morgan.
The beauty of Android, compared to closed and proprietary operating systems like Apple’s, is that its APIs are public, which makes it easy for Motorola or other handset makers to program their phones to tap Skyhook’s system every time another application on the phone needs latitude and longitude data.
But now Google seems to be paying a price for that openness. Last month, Skyhook introduced a service called SpotRank, an anonymized historical database of the locations of the mobile phone users who have tapped Skyhook’s database for a location fix. Skyhook processes hundreds of millions of such location “lookups” daily, giving it a very accurate picture of where people are when they’re using location-related apps. The company used SpotRank to map the massive influx of smartphone-toting marathon spectators in Boston last week, for example.
That’s information that Google and other companies would dearly like to have, since it could help publishers and retailers tailor search-related advertising and other services based on users’ locations. But SpotRank diverts the information to entities who wish to license it from Skyhook, such as Boulder, CO-based SimpleGeo, which makes geolocation tools for mobile developers.
Indeed, the name “SpotRank” seems almost deliberately calculated to tweak Google’s sensibilities, echoing, as it does, the PageRank algorithm behind Google Web searches. But a Skyhook press release about the Motorola deal doesn’t even mention Google.
“Motorola is committed to providing rich location services for our customers and developer partners,” Christy Wyatt, corporate vice president of software and services product management for Motorola Mobile Devices, said in the release. “Precise location is central to the mobile experience, and Skyhook’s Core Location will enhance Motorola’s Android-based mobile devices with its innovative location technology.” Motorola expects to ship phones equipped with the Skyhook software later this year.
