iPhone 2.0 geotagging?

A newer beta of the iPhone 2.0 firmware, released to a group of enterprise developers this week, appears to reinforce the idea that the iPhone will have some sort of GPS component. Sources for AppleInsider are said to claim that the 5A292g build lets location-enabled applications, such as Maps, ask for a user's permission in transmitting data to identify position. The current iPhone firmware also lets users get a rough gauge of their position, but is imprecise and does not bother asking for permission with any location data it may transmit.

The Camera app is now also said to ask for location information, suggesting that in final form, the iPhone 2.0 firmware may allow geotagging of photos so they can be sorted by where they were shot. This is not a common feature on phones or in dedicated cameras, and often requires external hardware or manually entering coordinates.

Within the Settings menus, there is said to be a new universal "Location Services" option, which lets users block or enable positioning across all applications. This may be intended to assuage privacy concerns, which could be raised by the accuracy GPS enables.

The final release of the iPhone 2.0 firmware is due sometime next month.

by MacNN Staff