Motorola Turns To Skyhook Wireless For Android-based Location Services

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Thanks to a recently posted press release, we have learned that Motorola is breaking up with Google, at least in part. Of course, lets just hope that the only inaccurate portion of the news is the fact that the press release is dated for tomorrow. Oops for posting that early, but the news is now public. Anyway, it looks like Motorola has chosen to partner with Skyhook Wireless for their location based services on Android.

Image courtesy Google

“Motorola is committed to providing rich location services for our customers and developer partners,” said Christy Wyatt, corporate vice president of software and services product management for Motorola Mobile Devices. “Precise location is central to the mobile experience, and Skyhook’s Core Location will enhance Motorola’s Android-based mobile devices with its innovative location technology.”

And with that, this somehow feels weird that Motorola would choose to not use Google. So far we are not sure which handsets this will debut with, however according to the details it was noted that the Skyhook-enabled Motorola smartphones will begin shipping later this year. Its also unclear as to whether this will affect the Android 2.1 rollout for any of the Motorola devices currently on the market.

In terms of the Skyhook setup, your device will be able to give an accurate position based on a mixture of Wi-Fi locations as well as GPS and locations of the cell towers. It should also be pointed out that Apple currently uses Skyhook on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

Putting the guessing aside though, this move will means that future Android phones from Motorola will have their location services being provided by Skyhook. And in a word that should make developers happy, it does appear as if this will be built-in to the operating system which means any of the apps, default or third party will still be able to take advantage. It also may be of greater benefit to location services that require an exact location such as check-in services like Foursquare and Gowalla.

If nothing else, this release reads as if Motorola is really happy and excited. Who knows maybe this move will make the location awareness that much better on Moto devices and we will see other Android handset makers switching in the future.