The following instructions will setup your Jailbroken iPhone to update your FireEagle location every 5 minutes. While Navizon provides this same feature, I’ve been less than impressed with it’s accuracy . This method uses both Skyhook and the Google Maps ‘Locate Me’ cell-tower-triangulation method, which are much more accurate than Navizon in my recent tests.
Prerequisites
- Jailbroken 1.1.x iPhone
- OpenSSH installed on iPhone
- A computer on the same subnet as your iPhone
- FireEagle invite
- If you don’t have one, ask @firebot nicely.
Step 1: Disable Sleep
- Settings -> General -> Set Auto-Lock to ‘Never’
- This is to ensure the SSH connection we’ll establish in Step 3 isn’t terminate. You may revert this setting after following these instructions.
Step 2: Determine your iPhone’s IP Address
* Settings -> Wi-Fi ** Tap the blue arrow to the right of the wireless network with the check by it
Step 3: SSH into your iPhone
Open Terminal (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app) and run the following:
Your password is ‘alpine’ unless you’ve changed it
Step 4: Download needed files
Step 5: Create wrapper script
Step 6: Set executable bit on all files
Step 7: Authenticate with FireEagle
This will open a MobileSafari window. Login to your FireEagle account and allow TrackMe to update your location. Then run:
Step 8: Test!
After several seconds, you should be returned to a shell prompt. Now visit FireEagle’s My Location page and login. You should see:
Fire Eagle last spotted you less than a minute ago at LOCATION using TrackMe.
If not, please start over at Step 4. Something’s gone wrong.
Step 9: Steup LaunchDaemon to ping FireEagle every 5 minutes
You’re Finished!
That should do it! Please let me know via twitter (@jnewland) or in the comments if you have any problems / suggestions! Big thanks to Erica Sadun for writing the iPhone tools used to make this happen!