A hidden dialog box in Apple’s recently released iPhoto ‘09 software suggests the company may be planning to use the iPhone 3G’s GPS to assist users in geotagging their non-iPhone photos. TidBITS reports that an unused dialog box contains text “Activate the location application on your iPhone or iPod Touch.
Once selected, any available location information will be transferred to your iPhoto library and associated with the photos in the selected event(s).” Elsewhere, a separate string states, “Select an iPhone or iPod Touch from your list of named devices. Once selected, the appropriate information will be transferred to your iPhoto library and associated with the photos in the selected event(s).”
While further specifics are currently unknown, it appears that users would need to run a program on their iPhone or iPod touch that would log location data as they traveled, then sync with iPhoto ‘09 to geotag photos taken with any camera that does not support geotagging natively.
The report suggests that the data might also be used to create more accurate maps, showing the route taken between shots. It is unclear how the feature would work with the original iPhone or iPod touch units, which lack GPS support, whether the application would be allowed to run in the background, and what the drain on battery life may be; the presence of a reference to iPod touch is especially unusual as the device’s Wi-Fi functionality is its only tool for vaguely estimating locations.
