The iphone and the 3G iPad have proper gps chips in them. Assisted gps uses your location based on cell sites and wifi to accelerate the lock time when the almanac is out of date. For the gps to work the device can't be in flight mode. I am sat at stanstead typing this on an iPad and can't remember the name of the gps chip set but something is in the back of my mind that it may be infineon.

Bose-x

I dont think so, but happy to be proved wrong.

Apple suggest it is assisted GPS on their own web site.

It makes me smile how for ages I have been slagged off by certain individuals for using this technology, but the instant God (Steve Jobs in a tight black t-shirt) comes out with it, in the form of an oversized Iphone, everybody raves about it :) :) :)

Gosh, for some time I have been getting airborne tafs, metars, radar images, and even emails (if I could be bothered) using a tablet computer (which could be any cheap windoze tablet computer; they have been about for years, with shiny screens) and a £300 Hughes 7100 Thuraya satellite phone from Ebay. 99 US cents per minute.

This is the iPad GPS chip.

It's separate (if that makes any difference) to the 3G chip.

Referenced from here.

Fuji, bose has it right re A-GPS. The description at Wikipedia covers it nicely...

Assisted GPS - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I hope he is but I am still not certain.

I just switched on in flight mode (wifi and 3 g) disabled and couldn't get a gps cold start in the time I'd expect on a stand a lone chipsets; so I am still not convinced exactly what is fitted.

It's definitely full GPS as Bose says, the assisted is just to narrow down the location if a cell tower or hotspot is present.

I've started the 3G iPad up with no SIM and no wifi hotspots nearby.

Finds the location no problem, and tracks correctly with MotionX.

Flight mode will disable the GPS also won't it? Yes, just checked, if you have flight mode on, that's no Wifi/3G/GPS. You need to have it off flight mode to get GPS even if there's no Wifi/Sim inserted.

Hi Slopey, how's your iPad NOTAM app coming along? Is it available yet? The screen shots looked like a good product.... We want to hear more

Aucky