How dose the iPod Touch's "gps" work

Question

I know it uses Wi-Fi signals but how. I see how it could maybe use triangulation. But still you would first have to be within range of Wi-Fi and that Wi-Fi would have to be unsecured and then all the routers would have to know where it was geologically. I’m into this type of science and would love to know a lot more.

Answer 1

Thy Lord Almighty has given thou the gift of navigational widom my dear brother.

God Bless.

Answer 2

Apple works with a company called Skyhook Wireless.  Skyhook workers collect data about each WiFi hotspot.  This info includes the MAC address of the router (every network-enabled device has a unique MAC address), possibly the SSID and encryption status, and of course the latitude and longitude.  I'm not certain this is how it works, but I assume the iPod Touch/iPhone contacts a server with info about the WiFi routers it is seeing, and the server returns lat-long info to the iPod Touch based on what it knows about the location of the routers that are being seen by the iPod touch.  You mentioned the routers being unsecured.  The security/encryption doesn't matter.  We just need to associate a MAC address with a location.  We're not accessing the network, which would require the network being open or us having the encryption key, we're just seeing that the network is there and associated latitude and longitude with it.

Answer 3

The iPod Touch does not have GPS.

Edit:  It pings the closest Wi-Fi connection and gives you a rough estimate of where you are

Answer 4

It doesn't have one only iPhone 3G does bu tiPod touch does not have a GPS chip

Answer 5

it ues wifi router to locate you