Before the iPhone, I worked on a few games for what were called "feature phones"

Re:Before the iPhone, I worked on a few games for what were ... by surfsvammel on Thursday May 20, 2021 @04:54PM (#27227104)

This is me guessing: This sounds like before turn-by-turn navigation was possible. If they had to approximate location via a set list of cell ids, then that doesn't give very precise location data. Also, back then, I am guessing, there where not as good map data available, especially not that would fit in a phone. I would also think that this was before synthesised speech was really possible to do on a phone.

The world is a different place today.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Before the iPhone, I worked on a few games for what were ... by dangrossman on Thursday May 20, 2021 @06:59PM (#27228504)

Before smartphones and before cheap GPS, I got spoken turn-by-turn directions while driving from Tellme.

1-800-TELL-ME launched in 1999/2000. You told it your address and the destination address, and it read you the directions one at a time. E.g. after you made the first turn, you'd ask for the next one and it'd tell you. It did not need any GPS this way, it's like talking to someone sitting next to you reading the map for you.

Microsoft bought Tellme in 2007 for $800 million.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Before the iPhone, I worked on a few games for what were ... by atatatat on Thursday May 20, 2021 @07:10PM (#27228597)

And did what with it?

And why?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Before the iPhone, I worked on a few games for what were ... by dangrossman on Thursday May 20, 2021 @07:14PM (#27228643)

To do the same thing Google was doing that year when they launched GOOG-411:

Using the interactive phone calls to train their speech recognition systems, so that they could eventually use what they learned to develop things like Google Assistant, Cortana, Windows Voice Recognition, etc.

Tellme was taking 2 billion calls a year when they were acquired. They had all the training data Microsoft could want to compete with Google in that area.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Before the iPhone, I worked on a few games for what were ... by grzm on Thursday May 20, 2021 @07:11PM (#27228612)

> In early 2012, Microsoft divested itself of Tellme Networks' interactive voice response (IVR) service and the majority of its employees to [24]7 Inc. The service was moved to a non-toll-free number.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tellme_Networks

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Before the iPhone, I worked on a few games for what were ... by asdff on Thursday May 20, 2021 @05:39PM (#27227681)

GPS navigation is 90s tech, though. I had garmin barking turns at me in the early 2000s same as siri today. In fact usually better reception than my cell phone if it was a clear day, since cell coverage is still terrible where you really need need it out in the boonies where gas stations are miles and miles apart.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Before the iPhone, I worked on a few games for what were ... by pbhjpbhj on Thursday May 20, 2021 @06:48PM (#27228427)

Devices like the Garmin [0] were chunky though, weren't they, like a few cm thick, even compared to phones of the times they were big. And to my [limited and shaky] recollection people had car mounted antennae for GPS (in the late 90s) because they worked poorly without it?

The first retro-fittable GPS was in 1997, the Alpine CVA-1005 [1], which weighed >3kg and had a display of 26cm across; it connects for nav to a CDROM drive containing base unit [2]; here's the wiring diagram [3].

[0] https://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-electronics/gadgets/the-c... [1] https://ndrive.com/brief-history-gps-car-navigation/ a good review of early GPS [2] https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Alpine-NVA-N751A-Navigation-Syste... [3] https://elektrotanya.com/alpine_cva-1005_wiring_diagram.pdf/...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Before the iPhone, I worked on a few games for what were ... by asdff on Friday May 21, 2021 @03:03PM (#27238457)

Chunky doesn't matter for a car GPS. They sit on your dash, not in your pocket. For my old garmens, the weighted sandbag mount they used to hold the device onto the dash was honestly less frustrating than a suction cup that falls of the windshield down to your feet while you a driving on the highway.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Before the iPhone, I worked on a few games for what were ... by pbhjpbhj on Saturday May 22, 2021 @06:11PM (#27250721)

Oh, for sure, but surfsvammel was on about tech that fits in your pocket, you responded that GPS was 90s tech, and I was just fleshing out that whilst it was 90s tech it was only really widely available as tech for a car (and of course USA restricted GPS accuracy, which meant it often got confused in the UK as to which road one was on).

The last Garmin my dad had, maybe 5 years ago was decidedly chunky compared with phones at the time (but you need a reasonable sized screen and the use case meant it didn't need to be thinner, so perhaps not a fair comparison).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Before the iPhone, I worked on a few games for what were ... by sithadmin on Thursday May 20, 2021 @05:50PM (#27227830)

GPS nav hasn't improved much since the 90s, but smartphone nav relying on multiple positioning methods has improved remarkably in even the past 5-6 years. It used to be neither a dedicated GPS device nor a smartphone could handle dense urban areas (where buildings cause satellite interference) if you were moving much faster than a pedestrian.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Before the iPhone, I worked on a few games for what were ... by excalibur on Thursday May 20, 2021 @05:50PM (#27227836)

True, but also your phone utilizes the same GPS signals. It's all about the maps. Your Garmin typically had maps for the whole country preloaded, your phone typically downloads them on the fly. So in the boonies your phone knows exactly where it is in terms of longitude and latitude, but hasn't a clue where anything else is.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Before the iPhone, I worked on a few games for what were ... by kccqzy on Thursday May 20, 2021 @11:22PM (#27230127)

It's not just about maps. Unlike a dedicated GPS device, your phone uses A-GPS for faster geolocation. Before A-GPS, you often need to wait a couple minutes before the device has any idea of its location or the time. Offline maps are available for both phones and non-phones, and aren't an issue at all.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Before the iPhone, I worked on a few games for what were ... by catblast01 on Friday May 21, 2021 @12:00AM (#27230361)

Is everyone here too old to remember MapQuest or CD based car navigation systems? Apparently. We had decent turn by turn in the 90s. In the US mapping data was heavily derived mostly from public Census TIGER data, which had flaws but was good enough.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Before the iPhone, I worked on a few games for what were ... by bserge on Friday May 21, 2021 @02:01AM (#27230976)

Just recently I had to explain how that thing works on an old car. In the end, my advice was to just slap an Android phone/tablet on the dashboard and forget the stupid CD satnav :D

They also had a backseat DVD player with (shudder) analog video input. The quality was atrocious!

[ Parent | on HN ]