Make an iPhone App so users can map hotspots for you

Just curious, what's the scenario in which you envision unreliable data? GPS's (all of them, AFAIK) provide some kind of quality of fix measure, so in theory couldn't you just establish a minimum fix quality and reject any data that doesn't meet it? I'm not familiar enough with the iPhone's location engine to know if they make enough info available, but any WinMo phone (for example) with a GPS does. ( Delete or Edit)

One concern I could imagine is that you wouldn't want the source iPhone to be moving too quickly when it's taking its wifi samples. Position updates can take a few seconds, as can the wifi scans, and if the phone is moving along at sixty miles per hour as it's scanning, it's possible that the position and scan information could be pretty far out of sync. (It's also possible that I'm talking out of my butt, but I've done enough fooling around with this stuff to make me think it might be a concern.) ( Delete or Edit)

They probably would also have to protect themselves from someone intentionally injecting large amounts of bogus data. I realize that someone can submit bogus data now through Skyhook's web site, but the amount of damage they can do is limited, and I'm sure Skyhook has a way of detecting whether a user submitted position is wildly inaccurate. ( Delete or Edit)

I disagree that its logical to have the app allow manual coordinate entry. In fact, I think it's far more likely (and logical) to have an app only submit data on an automated (and, by definition, quality controlled) basis. Manual data entry not only introduces the potential for gross errors (and necessitates a more involved QC program) , it is highly unlikely that any significant number of 1st gen iPhone users would take the time to research their current location to a degree that's accurate enough for Skyhook's purposes. Think about the scenario: a user would have to use some third party mapping program to manually determine their coordinates for a given location, then copy them to the Skyhook mapping app every time they wanted to submit. Even if you trust that they'll be diligent about it, how many people do you think will do that? Very few. I think they'll be far better served by only allowing automated data collection with the QC built in, and those who want to manually submit APs can go to the website as before.

Oh, and I agree with ups that if what is developed is iPhone specific, I'll be pretty disappointed. There's a whole world of phone users out there with GPS and wifi who don't want Apple's paws on their apps... ( Delete or Edit)

Wifi is only part of the Skyhook package. Their "XPS" purports to use wifi, cell tower triangulation and GPS combined to give the fastest time to fix and highest availability possible for devices with any combination of the three radios. I'm not positive, but I bet 2nd gen iPhones still use Skyhook in that manner to assist - if they don't they're missing out.

Also, I'm pretty sure Skyhook does use signal strength information to triangulate a more accurate fix when multiple APs are seen. Regardless, in a device that only uses Skyhook's WPS (1st gen iPhones) there has to be substantial involvement by the user to manually map the data. I suppose an app that tied the devices wifi radio in to an application interface like the "submit your AP" page on their site would at least get you all you needed in one place (basically you point out your location on a map and the software takes a wifi snapshot and uploads). That would be slick for devices without GPS, and not much more likely to result in erroneous data than the web page is. ( Delete or Edit)