Re: Civic Address for V2

hello.

> I question whether a javascript browser API is actually going to be used for these scenarios. Based on the use cases in the spec, we are targeting primarily consumer scenarios where location, especially civic address location, is being used as metadata and for making web apps contextually aware.

this is the "make google maps work on my phone" scenario that definitely 
has a lot of appeal as a low-hanging fruit.

> I don't see why this API needs to compete with or support standards that are designed for a very different set of use cases.

just thinking of browsers and web pages is not the only possible use of 
this API. it is a geolocation API (not even specific to JavaScript) for 
any case where code running on a client should be able to interact with 
the location information provided by the client device. i think looking 
beyond "google maps for the phone" would be an important perspective for 
this activity; it is going to set the precedent on how location 
information is made available and modeled by W3C standards. the question 
of how much structure is supported, and how well privacy is handled, are 
core issues on how location will be treated not only withing the scope 
of the geolocation API, but on the web in general. it worries me a bit 
to see that there is no "grand plan" from the W3C side to deal with this 
a bit more strategically; but even if we treat this as something 
self-contained and without a "grand plan" behind it, looking beyond 
current major web apps at what we want the location-aware web to be 
would be a good idea.

just my 2¢,

dret.

Received on Monday, 9 March 2009 18:46:21 UTC