AltLocationServices

AltLocationServices is an Android network location provider. Rather than waiting for a satellite fix, it obtains an approximate position by querying BeaconDB, a geolocation database, and returns the result to the system as a network location source. Applications that ask Android for a coarse position can then be answered without a vendor backend.

Because the position comes from a lookup against BeaconDB, coverage varies with what that database holds for a given area; in sparsely mapped places a network fix may be imprecise or unavailable, and satellite positioning remains the route to exact coordinates. This makes the app most relevant on Android builds where the usual network location provider is absent or unwanted.

It is published by Vayun Mathur under the MIT licence and exists for Android only. Supplying a system location provider is a platform-level role rather than an ordinary application feature, so the setup steps depend on the ROM in use.