Loopt today announced that its social mapping service has launched to consumers on the Sprint Instinct family of devices, with always-on location options.
The Loopt Location Platform provides high accuracy, high frequency mobile device location information and location-aware mobile web applications.
The Sprint Instinct features an enhanced version of Loopt, including integrated touch-screen controls for exploring interactive maps, view updates and alerts when friends are nearby, and Facebook Connect, to easily post status updates to Facebook with photos and locations.
Last week they introduced Loopt for the iPod touch. The social mapping service also runs on the iPhone, G-1 and Blackberry.
Skyhook Wireless uses Wi-Fi and cell tower signals to provide location information and is utilized by Loopt and others, in lieu of GPS. The Dopplr app can show you nearby places to eat, stay and explore, as recommended by the Dopplr community. It also comes with built-in recommendations for 250 popular cities around the world.
In related news, Google Latitude has added location to Google Maps for the Chrome browser and Firefox and added location to the iPhone. Unlike the Google Toolbar, which requires a special install, location is now built into Google Maps through the browser. Search with My Location for Safari on the iPhone currently works for English speakers in the U.S. and U.K., with multilingual and multinational support coming soon.
Today Skyhook released its July report on trends in location-aware apps (pdf) from Apple’s App Store, Google’s Android Marketplace, Blackberry App World, Nokia’s Ovi Store, and the Palm App Catalog.
Around 1/3 of Apple LBS apps are mass-produced local search or travel guide apps. Nokia’s Ovi Store has the smallest ratio of LBS apps to total apps. Only 2% of Ovi apps use location, surprising considering Nokia’s $8.1 billion acquisition of Navteq.
GPS-enabled mobile phones will account for some 70% market share of personal navigation devices by 2013, says a new market research report by RNCOS. The mobile location market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of more than 20% and cross $75 Billion by 2013. TomTom and Garmin are the current market leaders. ABI Research expects the number of paying handset-based turn-by-turn navigation users to increase to 26 million by the end of 2010 with the Asia-Pacific region experiencing the strongest growth.
