Mitch wrote:
> But the government did NOT mandate GPS; it mandated a locating system
> and its needed accuracy.

Which apparently isn't needed. When my son loses his phone or himself,
I can use an online service to query the phone for its location.
It always includes an accuracy disclaimer, and displays the radius on
the map. Sometimes, it's "within 17 meters" but others--well, on one
occasion, if he had been choking, couldn't speak, and called 911,
the EMTs would have had to search twenty square miles of residential area.

> if these phones actually use GPS, and are therefore full GPS units, why
> is anyone trying to sell GPS units?

because they aren't "full" GPS units

> Why aren't the cell makers building all GPS features into their
> already-capable phones? (Note that giving directions is not a GPS
> feature, but an application of GPS info.)

Because some of us want a $50 cell PHONE, not a $500 do-everything.

--
Wes Groleau
----
The man who reads nothing at all is better educated
than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.
-- Thomas Jefferson