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Built-in GPS moves location into the smartphone mainstream
From How GPS Became Invisible Infrastructure: Satellites, Smartphones and Precise Time
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Adoption
Built-in GPS moves location into the smartphone mainstream
The iPhone 3G launched with built-in GPS and an app platform, helping turn satellite positioning from a specialist feature into an everyday input for maps, transport and location-based applications.
GPS receivers had appeared in mobile phones before 2008, but the combination of built-in GPS, mobile broadband and a large third-party application ecosystem changed how ordinary users interacted with location. Apple's iPhone 3G explicitly promoted built-in GPS for expanded location-based services, while competing smartphone platforms were making the same transition. Once developers could treat location as a standard sensor rather than a separate navigation device, GPS became embedded in ride-hailing, local search, fitness, photography, delivery and thousands of other applications.
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