Location Based Services are all the rage currently. In fact 2010 is seeing the largest surge in LBS Apps being released on several mobile platforms and VCs are scrambling to invest in start up shops that have LBS products. Apps like Loopt, Foursquare and Gowala amongst countless others have quickly amassed millions of loyal users and have started to integrate unique money generating modules within them (virtual goods, points, branding etc). These apps thrive on location of the user. There is also a very high percentage of Apps on the Appstore that also have a location based component to them… and in fact a very large majority of Apps have some user location based module or feature.
As a developer you need to know how this is done. A user’s current location is derived by using the Core Location API that is built into the iPhone SDK. This API communicated with an online service that provides the data – that is then sent to the device to process or the app – and for the user to see.
Below is a link to a step-by-step tutorial on how to use core location. It is built with Objective-C and starts from the ground up and will take you through right from the beginning – and will show you how to communicate with the Google XML Weather API, to finally presnet the data on the device for the user.
Tutorial Part 1 – Adding Local Weather Conditions, Part 1
Tutorial Part 2 – Adding Local Weather Conditions, Part 2
This tutorial will cover all aspects, and is an excellent starting point if you want a step-by-step tutorial on adding localized information into an iPhone or iPad App .