Off to the races with location based services

Today the iPhone App Store opened for business. The App store is fan-fucking-tastic. Very fast, easy to naviate and rich apps.

Here are some of the initial apps I downloaded:

-Twitterific
-Yelp
-Weatherbug

When I launched each app, everyone of them asked me if they can use my location data. And they all worked remarkably well.

When I updated twitter with twitterific my profile immediately updated with location data and looked like this:

Yes, yes I know this is a pretty technical display of location but you can imagine what it will look like in the near future (update: already better! see bottom of this post).

Yelp & Weatherbug did exactly what you would expect with my location data. When I clicked for nearby drugstores it showed me places on newbury street, boylston street and huntington avenue. I never typed in a zip code or anything.

Keep in mind I’m using the 1st gen iphone with that triangulation thing. Just wait until we have a real gps radio. And that wait is over tomorrow.

We’ve only begun to scratch the surface with location but credit to Apple for making this a real opportunity.

Now I want a location based wikipedia. It starts with things like a social camera. And then with location based blogs.

We are off to the races.

Update: just installed Twittelator. Location is even better. Automatically includes location with a link to google maps in the tweet. Looks like this: