Mobile web app to be location aware

[Merdok]

Hi Guys,

 

I'm in the process of building a mobile web app for phones with wireless and gps, I need the app to be able to identify its location and display information dependent on that location. I asked in the PHP forums at first but was told to try the javascript one.

 

Eg: One of the apps I've been asked to develop is for a building company. They want their inspectors to be able to visit each building site and open up their control panel and immediately have the information available for that particular location. It also has to offer alternatives, eg if the building site is close to another building site they should be able to select the correct on.

 

Is this possible to do as a mobile webapp? If so could someone please point me in the right direction.

 

Thank you

 

Alex.

[corbin]

To do that, you would need access to the location handling stuff in the phone.  In other words, the location stuff is most likely handled on an OS level.

 

So, an app (think about an iPhone app for example) might be able to access the API to retrieve location information, but as far as accessing location information on a web page, JS would have to be able to access an API in the browser which would then have to access something in the OS.  So, possible?  Maybe.  Would depend on the phone.  I would guess no though.

[Merdok]

Hmm... ok, might just have to have 'select location' as an option

 

thanks anyway.

[corbin]

It's worthing looking into it since that would be a cool feature for phones to have, but I don't think any phones' browsers have a JS API for location.  You could probably google for the docsof a couple phones though and see.