[somebear]

Then you will write a very interesting, but somewhat misleading blog post, just like everyone else has written in the past few weeks.

The point is that the database on your phone is a subset of the greater (global) database mapping wifi and cell access points to location. The local database contains timestamps of when your phone downloaded the information. The global database only contains a list of access points and approximate locations of those access points.

That way, when your phone sees an access point it can look up in the database (locally or globally) and see if this access point has been pinpointed, if it has it will be another tool for your device to provide you with a proper location.

In other words: animating the points in your database will show the first time your phone downloaded information about a specific access point, which will give you a trail of your movements (to a certain extent limited by the factors mentioned above).