Delorme has huge opportunity here to expose a public API for
accessing data. I work for Apigee.com and exposing the power of APIs
to providers and empowering developers is our business. As such I've
been trying to push Delorme to expose an API and offering support
where I can. I hope that they do elect to expose access via APIs as
they've got a lot more data available than the SPOT systems, but they
need external developers to create the cool apps to leverage that
information.

I know there have been many calls on their blog to expose data and
access via an API. I suspect that exposing it wasn't part of their
initial roadmap and they've focused on the obvious consumer need for a
map with dots and data as a first step.

The good news is that the data is there, structured and readily
accessible, so it won't be too much of a stretch to expose it via some
sort of public API.



It will be very interesting to see if it will be possible for programmers to
access the position data as done by Mark Hawkins and Frank Paynter for the
SPOT-2. *The SPOT-2 has really become the standard at soaring contests. *It
was awesome to be able to see everyone's position displayed on a large
screen at Parowan last year. *I hope it will be possible to display both
SPOT-2 and DeLorme InReach data on the same map in the future.