This morning, I took my first stab at supporting the W3C Geolocation API in OurAirports and ourairports.mobi. If you’re using a geolocation-aware browser, such as Firefox 3.5 or recent versions of Safari, and you authorize OurAirports to know your location, your latitude and longitude (or your browser’s best guess about them) should appear automatically in the search box on the home pages.
I’m hoping especially that this will work with the iPhone (version 3 or better), since it’s supposed to support the W3C Geolocation API now. If this is successful, I can add new capabilities, such as an automatically scrolling map, without too much work.
If you own an iPhone, please try out the sites, and let me know what happens. They’re working fine with Firefox 3.5 in Linux, except that Firefox tells OurAirports that I’m in downtown Ottawa, about 4 km away from where I actually am (probably guessing from my IP subnet).
Land and Hold Short 
I don’t see anything different with Safari 4 on my Mac, or on the browser on my Palm Pre (which is based on a slightly older version of WebKit than Safari 4). What am I supposed to see?
Your current latitude and longitude should appear prepopulated in the search field, if your browser supports the W3C geolocation API. I might change it so that you have to click on a link first, though, just to avoid any privacy concerns.
Well, it works on iPod Touch (aka “iPhone – phone”). Doesn’t work on Safari 4 on my MacBook (although the Snow Leopard dvd is sitting there taunting me, I haven’t upgraded yet.) It does work for Firefox 3.5, though.
Thanks, Paul. I have success reports from the iPhone as well, both with ourairports.mobi and with the main site. Now, to make the big map into a moving map …
I’ve checked it with my iPhone (3.x…whaterever the latest release is) and the mobi site accurately puts me 0 NM from Kars airport, with a reasonable number of nearby airports listed. My only comment is that site is asking for permission to use my location information multiple times and each time I visit. I’ll let you know if that changes. Nice site, by the way!
Thanks, Anne. I don’t own an iPhone, so I can’t verify, but with Firefox 3.5 there’s an checkbox to grant a site permanent permission to use your location information.