[Macworld]

Post your comments for iPhone sends your pictures to the far side of the world here

[heyjp]

Dan, I think you meant "flips the longitude data from west to east" instead of "latitude data from east to west". Latitude (according to Jimmy Buffet) would depict north and south. Longitude depicts east and west. Flipping your coffe shops latitude would put you in the middle of the south pacific, halfway between Chile and New Zealand: quite a swim no matter which destination you chose.
I work for a business mapping company and we get sensitive about such geeky things ;-)
Jim
AWhere: GIS for the Rest of Us
www.awhere.com

[jefframos]

That's so odd!
My AirMe pictures have all been geotagged fine. However, my location on Loopt has consistently been a bit iffy. There's a cemetery a few blocks away from me and I was surprised to hear from a friend that I was eating a hotdog and IMing him from there considering I was comfortably laying in my bed room with my Macbook on my lap. Also, on TWO occasions, I was at home (which is right on a corner) and visiting a friend across town who also lives on a corner and the cross streets that Loopt stated I was at were a few blocks away each time.
The positioning that Maps gets me is almost frighteningly accurate so I can't see why Loopt can't access that info as perfectly?

[Jason Snell]

heyip: Good catch. Fixed.
jefframos: The bug appears to be in the embedding of longitude into EXIF data on photos. All other uses of GPS are just fine.

[Jason Snell]

It gets weirder. I tried to import an image on my G5 via ExpressionMedia, and it imported with correct data. Something on my MacBook (and Jacqui Cheng's, and Dan Moren's) or in iPhoto or somewhere is wiping out the West and North tags.

[Philbert]

I had the correct location given with my 1.0 iPhone updated with 2.0 software and the image was dragged out of iPhoto. (well, as "correct" as can be expected with the "simulated" GPS feature of the first iPhone - it's within a couple of miles.)
Maybe it's only an issue with the new iPhones and it's real GPS?

[nosarious]

Well...
I've had this happen a few times in Calgary but it seems to be relevant to when I am taking the photos. Most of the time it is either when I am travelling (on a ctrain) or when I am taking photos later in the evening.
It would be real handy to be able to copy the gps location from an iphone photo and paste it into a series of DSLR photos taken in the same area...

[davidagalvan]

I think your Loopt weirdness is mainly due to the fact that Loopt only appears to update your location on the Loopt maps once every few minutes, and not at all when you don't have the Loopt app open and in front of you on the screen. I had my phone off for a good portion of the day yesterday, and my wife saw me on the Loopt map as being at the location I was when I turned my phone off. But my location didn't update when I turned my phone back on, it wasn't until I opened up Loopt again on my iphone (the phone having been on and within cell coverage for hours) that my location finally updated.

So I don't think the Loopt issue is related to the geotagging.

[davidagalvan]

All,

Two things:

1. The stripping of the lat/lon REF EXIF data is definitely a problem with iPhoto that has been known for some time. Apple hasn't done anything about this problem yet, and it was a problem as early as several years ago (the age of my current version of iPhoto). You can see a discussion about this issue in the flickr forums, here:
http://www.flickr.co...57600040087961/
Note: I'm not saying this is the only problem that is causing some weirdness with geotags on iphone photos, but it is the only one that I have been able to reproduce on my iphone and mac.
Basically, you can import a photo with lat, lon and latREF (ie: N or S) and lonREF (ie: E or W) tags into iPhoto, and those tags will be preserved UNTIL you edit the photo. If you crop the photo, enhance it, or do a variety of other things with it in iPhoto, then iPhoto will save a modified version of the photo which keeps the lat and lon values (the numbers in degrees), but removes the REF tags, leaving it unclear whether the photo was taken in the E, W, N, or S hemispheres. If there is no REF tag in the EXIF data, then whatever program or service you are using to map the photo (Flickr for example), has it's own default as to where the photo was. This is why we're seeing photos taken in Los Angeles mapped in China: The "W" lon REF tag is missing, and so flickr assumes its 118 deg E instead of 118 deg W.

2. There is argument over whether this is an iphone problem or a problem only with the software we are using to import iphone photos. I am currently convinced it the latter, and that the iphone is correctly geotagging photos. But here is a way to test for yourself:

Go to the App Store and download ?Airme?. It?s a free iphone app that allows you to take a picture and immediately upload it to flickr or the airme.com website. It is useful in that it includes the EXIF information with the lat/lon. So, whichever photo upload site you use, the photo will arrive with the lat/lon that the iphone tagged it with.

I just used airme to take the linked picture, and as you can see (there is a map link in the lower right of the flickr page), it was geotagged by iPhone with the correct lat lon and the correct lat/lon REF tags. (I am in Los Angeles. . . you can see exactly where by looking at the map)

http://www.flickr.co...van/2675407490/

This is evidence to me that my iphone 3G is geotagging correctly, but that some sets of software used to edit an imported iphone photo (definitely iPhoto, perhaps others as well) can screw it up. Geotagging has been a somewhat niche activity up to now, and there are many photo programs that are not friendly with geotagged EXIF data, but have gone unnoticed because few people were worrying about the lat/lon tags. Until, that is, the iPhone 3G came out.

[djazzmusic]

Found a way to work around this problem.
If you import from iphone to aperture it works fine. The problem is with iphoto.
Im very disappointed with mac, and im not a "fan" anymore.
It feels like a new microsoft to me now.
Its soooo buggy the new iphone. Ok still better than the rest, but not a real mac that you buy, plug and work with no problems like my old G4 powerbook.
Iphone should be open, we should use it as usb stick etc etc. Mac made it in order to make money by forcing us to use it the way they want.
Im waiting for google to talk.
thanks for pointing out the problem and i hope my solution will work for you.