BlackBerry Cool

Here’s my what worked with my vw storm. VZNavigator cost $10/month, however other apps are able to access the internal gps at no cost. There were a few things i had to do to get it to work. Go to: Options->Advanced Options->GPS, set “GPS Data Source” to: Device GPS, and “GPS Services” to Location On (Not E911 Only).
After that Programs like Nav4All, GPSed, Poynt, Trapster (one of my personal favs), etc. should all work. To get google maps / Latitude to work you need to install “GPSed” and leave it running in the background, then google maps will get your location from the GPS instead of using cell tower triangulation.

its july 20th,, can someone tell me that GPS application loopt or lattitude is working on any other blackberry besides ‘storm’? i want to buy a cheaper blackberry with these application functioning… so that I can track that devise and get worry free about my family.

@polly:
Give up those apps ever working on a Verizon 8×30 BlackBerry. They work on Storm 9530 and Tour 9630. Storm’s can be found online for under $50 now for new contracts (amazon I believe). And Storm is going to be less than Tour in almost any instance.

Or switch to sprint. I believe those sort of apps work on old Sprint 8×30 BlackBerry but confirm that first.

@davidb
do you know of any golf yardage application that will work with the 8330 for verizon? i have found MANY free golf applications but since verizon has their gps locked, none is compatible. i can buy a handheld model but i would rather have all of this on my phone.

@Chris: you are right, none work with the GPS that is in the Verizon 8330. I have heard many DO work with an external bluetooth GPS puck though. This actually might work well for golfing as you could attach the puck to the cart. But that won’t help you on “cart path only” days, or close to the green. If Storm intrigues you it is hard to beat the deals to be had on it right now and several of the golf apps work flawlessly on it. And they work on Tour also.

Face it guys, NOTHING is ever going to work with the internal GPS on 8130/8330/8830 without Verizon having a complete change of heart. Yeah, THAT will happen…not! I’ve tracked the how’s and why’s and what’s of this for over two years now and it just aint gonna change. You can read old stories of people claiming they have successful hacks to make it work but NONE have ever panned out to be usable by the masses.

If you want fully working GPS on a Verizon BlackBerry, get a Storm or Tour now (sorry, don’t know about Pearl Flip), or hold out for Storm 2 or maybe Aries (8530). Storm 2 will be as unencumbered as current Storm plus have wifi, but 8530 is intended as a “low end” model so who knows how free its GPS might end up?

Does the GPS in the 9630 work internationally? On 8×30 Blackberries running BB OS 4.5 it did not. BB Maps worked worldwide, but it seemed that the GPS capability was inextricably tied into CDMA EVDO mode.

For education purpose and not comprising any of Verizon’s I.P.

Try to load….. say Bell mobility(Canada)’s O.S. into your Verizon phone? Most of the other carries are GSM so it would not work.

http://na.blackberry.com/eng/support/downloads/download_sites.jsp

The hardcore users do this to get the latest O.S. on their phone regardless of carrier.

Others has used this method to gain foreign language support.

@AlexS:
If you’re proposing that would free up the GPS for other apps, nope, its been tried. No go. If only it could have been so easy.

You can read the 8830 GPS thread at Crackberry.com (92 pages worth) to see two+ years of everything that has been tried and didn’t work.

Paying Verizon for GPS was just the second dumbest thing anyone has done and the worst was succumbing to any explanation by any Verizon employee claiming there wasn’t an alternative.

The BB GPS was “locked” from the Blackberry OS Engineering Menus and this special menu could be accessed with a mild amount of Google effort to learn the 3 key combination and a growing number of websites willing to freely and anonymously provide the short code into the “lock”.

Whether it was Verizon’s 8830, or any Blackberry made for the last umpteenth years, the “Engineering Screens” have always been able to perform EXTREME CONFIGURATIONS the BB OS ver X.YOUNAMEIT.D.U.NCE.

Most cellular store employees have never heard of them since they aren’t expected for for their pittance of salaries and if you ever take a loot at the ES’s…you’d be afraid to let anyone else bang inside this privileged menu.

Those people with MMS know what I’m referring to and the ES’s are the 2nd deepest level of config and reports you can glean from a BB w/o using HEX registers and a JTAG.

Some examples of the info you can config and dump from the Engineering Screens is the unique identifiers assigned to radio towers and even the sub ID’s to the actual platters on the towers, AND IF YOU’RE adventurous or bored enough, you can even set your phones affinity to define priority for those towers and in what order.
….OH, and you could’ve just flipped a single toggle to enable the agnostic GPS antenna inside your Canadian designed phone and ignored the Verizon official screw disguised as a value added surcharge.

Posters like DavidB on 9/2 are another tragic example of middle class consumers accepting the first response as the only response and worse, ..venturing into forums spreading specious explanations as authoritative truth.

Misery loves company but the advice of the ignorant can be ignored since just deleting the hidden vendor.xml file out your BB OS desktop program directories is all that is necessary to load any carriers OS into your phone and even the CDMA GSM versions are irrelevant. If that bit of advice fascinates you then begin researching and validating it across the web instead of listening to unsubstantiated advice from those like DavidB posting b.s onto anonymous forums !!!!

JEEESH PEOPLE, NO WONDER RALPH NADER WANTS TO PRESIDENT SO BADLY !

Lol! Nice rant dude. If only it was so easy. There is nothing ANY user of a Verizon 8×30 BlackBerry can do to enable GPS on their phone. You can upgrade the OS to anybody’s 4.5, such as the 4.5.0.169′s for 8130/8330/8830 that USCellular just released, or the “official” 4.5 OS released by Verizon, or use a Sprint or Bell or Telus or Alltel or whoever you desire, but still the only FREE app that will work is BlackBerry Maps. No Google Maps, no Nav4All, no LifeInPocket, nothing will be able to access the internal GPS for location. No loading of other carrier OS, no using Engineering Screens, no hacking of PDE authentication, nothing. The post above shows a clear lack of understanding of the technical issues involved as well as how the LBS API functions under OS versions prior to 4.7. If it was that easy we all would have been doing it for the past 2 or more years eh?

Perhaps rather than posting your vitriol you would care to post step by step instructions right here, or provide a link to a site that has such already posted?

(Posted from my Tour 9630 with completely unencumbered internal GPS)

agreed with DavidB, some instructions would be nice if it’s even possible. VZW sucks for doing this to these phones.

We are trying to use this software with a BB Curve 8330 on verison (software version 4.5.0.77). We can’t get this to track any sats… Is there documentation available for this software? Does it work with the GPS chip in the 8330?

I have tried multiple software programs with my BB Curve 8330. I have the 4.5.0.160 os (when I tried to update from BB site – this was the lastest version available ???)
The only time I was able to get the GPS to work was when using the trial TeleNav. During the trial period I was able to get another GPS app to work, but as soon as I cancelled TeleNav GPS functionality ceased on the other program and has not worked on any other apps since either.
Anyone have some advice or help to offer?

ok, i can swithch my gps on , but only when my radio is set to off or 1xev , when on Gsm it's not working but the problem is that i leave in mauritius and the CDMA network don't existe… can i do something to have it work in GSM mode???? i use a 8830 originaly from sprint … my pin 31aeabcf thanks you for your help