The iPhone 4S, Apple’s newest smartphone, supports both GPS and GLONASS satellite based location systems, according to the tech specs page devoted to the phone updated yesterday on the Apple website.
According to ifixit.com, whose authors have taken the smartphone apart, this dual capacity is provided by the Qualcomm MDM6610 baseband chip. Qualcomm has declined to comment on its relationship with Apple, news agency RIA Novosti reported.
It remains unclear in which countries the new iPhone GLONASS location capacity can be used.
The first ever GPS+GLONASS smartphone was launched in April of this year on the Russian market by MTS, a major Russian mobile operator. The device, falling into the budget smartphone category, has been criticized for its lack of standard functions and less than perfect design.
In early September, Samsung was the first major international handset manufacturer to offer a mobile phone with a GLONASS+GPS supported satellite location system. The new feature has been introduced in the most discreet way.
Compared to GPS only features in mobile devices, the GPS+GLONASS combination can improve the performance of location-based services (LBS) in certain cases. While calibrating device position with GPS only applications requires at least three satellite signals, devices using both GPS and GLONASS benefit from almost double the number of usable satellites in the sky compared to GPS alone, making positioning more accurate, especially in dense ‘urban canyon’ environments.
