LBS awakened in Samsung Jet phone at last

Rating: Get your bits from Route66

Strange but true, when the loan Samsung GT-S8000 (Jet) handset arrived at GoMo News Labs [We joke. Ed], the GPS facility was completely disabled. Today, we finally got it going. But what a struggle!

The most worrying aspect is that potential users of the Samsung LBS facility effectively have to be a computer whizz to get anywhere.

Given the lengths which network operators have gone to in order to promote location based services, offering a handset which has its GPS disabled as standard appears very strange.

As supplied, the Jet’s GPS had to be deliberately turned on via the settings menu. Next you discover that you need software which has been specially created for Samsung by Route 66. Worse still, the handset – which was intended for a Vodafone network – kept asking for a voucher.

No such voucher came with our loan model and GoMo News was unable to ascertain if any of the networks will ship the handset with a suitable voucher. Initially, the only alternative seemed to be to pay for the software yourself.

Luckily, today GoMo news was notified that there was a new version (9.7) of the required software - Route 66 Sync. When this version was loaded and the handset was connected via the USB cable, suddenly the software options came to life.

The good news was that we were offered UK roadmaps for free. Plus new versions of the male and female voices. A word of warning, you’ll need a fair sized microSD memory card to get this going because the maps alone take up almost 300 Mb.

So after a great deal of time and effort, the Jet was magically turned into a personal satnav device which is capable of providing routes via road or on foot.

This surely must be good news for those intending to develop LBS services which run on the Jet, although GoMo News is unsure of the best way to develop apps for this handset. It actually uses version 2.0 of Samsung’s TouchWiz UI.

Given that the handset is being offered at prices that approach bargain basement levels, it would make sense to consider the Jet for LBS apps.