Getting current location and posting it to a web service

Ok... maybe forbidden by Apple, but assuming this is permitted. What would be the best way to get the current location (not difficult) and posting it to a web service (also not much of a challenge). The app is for an artist who wants people to see where he is at the moment. Personally, I wouldn't want people to know where I am 24/7 but that's performance art I guess. An exact location is not wanted but a town or area would be preferred. I could modify the string when开发者_如何学C it gets to the server and make it more vague by rounding the LOG and LAT.

The app the fans would use would retrieve his current location from the server and update the map view with a location.

I suppose one way would be for him to find out his coordinates and post that to a web page but I'd like it to update automatically.

A response with code is not necessary, just a general opinion on methodology/advisability would be appreciated

I would probably give him a webpage to go to that records his position every time he visits. It would be a private URL, and perhaps use some lightweight authentication. For versatility, I'd record the exact position in the database (in case he changes his mind on how it should work later on). However, you could use an external service or another purchased database with zips or city information with lat/lng data, so you could just provide users of the client app with his general vicinity rather than exact location.

The alternative would be to give him an ad hoc app that does the same thing, but putting together that location recording webpage would be a much simpler process. Could be handy for other things, too.

Here's a little writeup about getting location from mobile Safari, just as a reference: http://mobiforge.com/developing/story/location-iphone-web-apps

Why wouldn't you just use google latitude and read out his status?

I think this should really be done as a web page web-app. You can get coordinates from the device through mobile safari and you can skip the app approval process. You can also set it up so it runs fullscreen on his phone and he won't know the difference. You can also put a password on it.

There is a good chance it would not get approved as a regular app.

You can always meta refresh the page to keep it updating.

http://smithsrus.com/gps-geolocation-in-safari-on-iphone-os-3-0/

"Artist" must log in to his application (thus insuring that he want to share his coordinates with your webserver), then you use CLLocationManager to get his coordinates and make a reverse geocoding using Google Maps API to get country and city for given coordinates.

Can't see anything special about it :)