The iPhone 5 Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi, Brian Klug & Vivek Gowri on October 16, 2012 11:33 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Apple
- Mobile
- iPhone 5
GNSS: Subtle Improvements
Section by Brian Klug
Like the iPhone 4S and the iPhone 4 CDMA before it, Apple has gone with the GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) leveraging both GPS and Russian GLONASS which lives entirely on the Qualcomm baseband. In the case of the iPhone 4S and 4 CDMA, that was onboard MDM6610 and MDM6600 respectively, both of which implemented Qualcomm’s gpsOneGen 8 with GLONASS tier. Going to on-baseband GNSS is really the way of the future, and partially the reason why so many of the WLAN, BT, and FM combos don’t include any GNSS themselves (those partners know it as well). In this scheme GNSS simply uses a dedicated port on the transceiver for downconversion, additional filtering (on RTR8600), and then processing on the baseband. The advantage of doing it all here is that often it eliminates the need for another dedicated antenna for GNSS, and also all of the assist and seed information traditionally needed to speed up getting a GPS fix already exists basically for free on the baseband. We’re talking about both a basic location seed, precision clock data, in addition to ephemeris. In effect with all this already existing on the baseband, every GPS start is like a hot start.
There was a considerable bump in both tracking accuracy and time to an assisted GPS fix from the iPhone 4 which used a monolithic GPS receiver to the 4 CDMA and 4S MDM66x0 solution. I made a video last time showing just how dramatic that difference is even in filtered applications like Maps.app. GLONASS isn’t used all the time, but rather when GPS SNR is either low or the accuracy of the resulting fix is poor, or during initial lock.
With MDM9615 now being the baseband inside iPhone 5, not a whole lot changes when it comes to GNSS. MDM9615 implements gpsOneGen 8A instead of just 8, and I dug around to figure out what all has changed in this version. In version 8A Qualcomm has lowered power consumption and increased LTE coexistence with GPS and GLONASS, but otherwise functionality remains the same. MDM9x25 will bring about gpsOneGen 8B with GLONASS, but there aren’t any details about what changes in that particular bump.
I spent a lot of time playing with the iPhone 5 GNSS to make sure there aren’t any issues, and although iOS doesn’t expose direct NMEA data, things look to be implemented perfectly. Getting good location data is now even more important given Apple’s first party turn by turn maps solution. Thankfully fix times are fast, and getting a good fix even indoors with just a roof between you and clear sky is still totally possible.
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grkhetan - Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - link
You dont "need iTunes" per se to use the iPhone any more. However, it is required if you sync music. However, I use iTunes Match -- so I dont need to use iTunes sync for anything... However I need to use iTunes to upload my music to the iTunes Match servers but thats it. I am happy to say with iCloud and iTunes Match -- "syncing" my iPhone is something that is no longer required at all.Touche - Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - link
One doesn't need iTunes, except one does...however, you don't, however you need it...but happily, you don't require it at all, except you do.Hmm...
grkhetan - Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - link
Touche, iTunes is not required to use the phone if you dont need music/videos using the default player. (You could play them from streaming services like Spotify/Pandora, etc or store it in dropbox).But if you need to play music using the default music player -- you need to use iTunes to sync the music over. BUT if you use iTunes Match, then you dont need to use "iTunes sync", but you need iTunes to upload the music to iTunes Match servers. This itself is not painful at all in my opinion -- the main burden with iTunes was the "sync"
phillyry - Sunday, October 21, 2012 - link
I'm sorry but I'm going to have to agree with Touché here.Please don't backtrack/double back to justify the fact that you do in fact need iTunes on an iPhone and need to sync it. Wired or wireless it's still a sync - it just goes through iCloud when done wirelessly.
Lets not confound the matters of whether the use of an iPhone is pleasant or not with whether you need to use the generally unpleasant iTunes sync. Apple's lockdown on sync methods sucks for the users freedom of access to their own device but, despite that, the device is still great to use.
ThreeDee912 - Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - link
Basically, if you want to put your own media on your iPhone, you'll need iTunes to sync or upload with iTunes Match.You can do everything else on the phone itself.
darkcrayon - Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - link
No, you don't need iTunes to put media on your iPhone. You do need it to put media in the stock Music or Videos app. If you don't want to use those there are many apps that let you supply your own music via wifi copy to the iPhone or by downloading them directly from the web if you have such a source.I don't have any issue with iTunes though so I just use that.
steven75 - Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - link
Funny, I know people who have switched the other way and are hugely relieved to be free of the bloatware, nervous anticipation of "will my phone ever get updated?", and crappy plastic hardware.In summary, anecdotes are fun and enjoy what ya got.
KPOM - Thursday, October 18, 2012 - link
Don't let the door hit you on the way out. Also, don't complain when Samsung decides your phone is "too old" for the latest update. I resisted the iPhone as long as I could. I even had a Nexus One for over 18 months. But once Google decided that its former flagship, which was released 6 months after the iPhone 3GS, was 'too old" to get any OS after Gingerbread (which it got about 3 months after Gingerbread devices came out) I decided I could no longer put up with Google's tactics. Plus, it's nice no longer giving away all my personal information to Google just for the privilege of using their bloated copycat OS.Spunjji - Friday, October 19, 2012 - link
No. Now you're giving it to Apple for the privelege of using their bloated copycat OS instead.Seriously, I was following you write up until your final crock-of-shit statement. All smartphone operating systems use your data, and they all borrow from each other.
Leyawiin - Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - link
"POOF!"Hate the commercials, but that guy makes me laugh.