It was recently made known to the users that the Samsung Galaxy Nexus Phone will

Include a sensor - a barometer. The sensor is rather new in the case of Android smartphones, though earlier a Motorola Xoom tablet had it.

Dan Morgill of Android has written about the barometer in his Google+ page. He said that the purpose of the barometer sensor is to accelerate the GPS (Global Positioning System) acquisition.

The sensor can be used for many purposes, but at least in the case of the smartphones,

the fundamental motive behind the inclusion of the sensor is for enabling faster GPS calculations.