iphone GPS apps

[troypiggo]

Finally got a iPhone 4 on Friday. Had a busy weekend and didn't really have a chance to play with it. One thing I do want is to use its GPS features.

It has a Maps application built-in. Seems to be ok, but very basic. What will these other GPS apps (free or paid) offer that the default Maps wont'?

Do a bit of a search for iphone GPS apps and it's a bit overwhelming, many to choose from, and some quite expensive. I've seen (MotionX ?) GPS Lite mentioned a couple of times. I know there's been a couple of "best iphone apps" threads here already. I imagine the software for these iphones is changing rapidly. Hard to keep up - "the best" one day may be superseded the next.

The only apps I have installed so far are iSSH, an HP42s RPN calculator, Starmap Pro, and Planets.

[Octane]

Get Trapster for starters, so you can drive at the maximum speed your car will allow you to, and only slow down when you see an alert for known enforcements. :P :P :P

Layar is pretty darn sweet, too.

SkyVoyager is tops.

H

[troypiggo]

Lol re Trapster. I got booked last week (first time in years), but not by a trap. It was an oncoming highway patrol car. Can the iPhone tell me when/where those guys are on the prowl?! :)

Will look into those others. Thanks mate. I knew you were all over the iphones.

[OICURMT]

Be careful with the iPhone GPS... stupid thing relies on the Location service of a service provider to initially determine which country you are in...

Me and the missus had major problems last month when we were traveling around Africa. When we were in the bush, no signal = no GPS... I didn't take my normal unit along thinking

No problem, iPhone is "Magical" ... WRONG!

My missus has an iPhone 3GS
OIC!

[troypiggo]

Thanks for the heads up OIC. I've managed to survive this far in my life without needing GPS. Just thought it'd be handy once in a while, but certainly wouldn't be relying on it for emergencies in remote areas etc. To be honest, I thought the 4GS was a true GPS, but never really investigated much.

My only experience with GPSs is with my father. He's a "grey nomad" and uses it extensively travelling around Australia. I definitely notice now whenever he jumps in the car, his brain turns off and he relies solely on the GPS. He doesn't even watch or really think about where he's going. I was on the phone with him when they were in Tasmania and he was telling me they were on the east coast. I could hear my mother in the background say "No we're not! What are you talking about, we're on the north-west coast." :lol:

I took him to a dark site back in November. I'd only been there once, so when I picked him up, thought I would use the GPS for the first time to actually navigate. OMG I could have killed him. He kind of knew how to get half way there, so every time the GPS would say to turn, I'd start indicating to turn because I was listening to it, and he'd say "What are you doing, don't turn here". So I didn't. Ended up getting lost and took us twice as long to get there. And worse, he did the same thing on the way home.

[davewaldo]

I think this is only true for the inbuilt maps program or other map services the require data connection to retrieve maps. I've used my iphone with no signal using other apps. The phone just uses the GPS to acquire long/lat, the app must do the rest. It can also use network info if required.

So if you have good programs you don't need data access. Thats why the garmin/tomtom apps for iphone cost so much - they include a full download of maps and don't require a 3g data connection. But if you just want a long/lat read out there are many free apps around.

[troypiggo]

Thanks Dave, that's exactly why I started this thread! For that kind of info. Helps me understand what to look for.

[OICURMT]

My missus wasn't using maps services, just trying to record Lat/Long's into a trip journal app, nothing more. My Blackberry's GPS worked without any problems at all. I just grabbed all the locations and e-mailed them to myself (held in the outbox until I could get a cell signal several days later) and presto... then I had to manually enter the coords into a textfile for uploading into her journal on the iPhone.

Anyhoo, hopefully the 4 is more "Magical" and allows the GPS to work regardless of whether Location Service is on or off, or with flight mode.

I wasn't aware that TomTom had an app for the iPhone, I'll go check it out.

[davewaldo]

Ok so I've looked more into this. Yes the iphones have assisted GPS, but that doesn't mean they need a network connection (optus, telstra etc). The GPS will work with no sim card. There are several reasons why it may not work for you. Its best to set your home and timezone correctly for the country you are in, otherwise the phone won't know what satellites to look for. Another more obvious possibility is that location services were not turned on for that specific program.

Tom tom state that their mapping program works without a network connection.

The other possibility is that you didn't wait long enough. The iphone uses cell towers to get its original lock and speed up location acquisition. There are reports of iphones with no cell connection taking up to 15mins to acquire a good lock (although it should be faster).

I'm not defending iphone GPS, to be honest its a bit lame, but works.

As for having GPS in "flight mode", that makes no sense. The idea of flight mode is to turn off all radio devices, that includes GPS.

It sounds like your iphone GPS didn't work on one occasion and now you're convinced all iphones never work without cell connection.

I've recorded my long/lat while bushwalking in Lamington National park where I certainly didn't have cell access. This was using Motion X app.

Everyone seems to think A-GPS is a bad thing... but really its just adding another feature to GPS, not limiting it. I think where the iphone falls down a bit is in its software utilisation of the iphone GPS hardware. The GPS could be better and respond better but Apple have implemented some strange software regarding GPS use which is designed to maintain battery life. Therefore it will use an many other methods of location acquisition first to narrow down roughly the position then focus in using GPS for the shortest time possible. When using the phone for basic things it works really well. However when you confuse it by going to another country and have no cell connection it doesn't cope too well.

But saying all this, GPS should work for you if you have no cell connection.

[davewaldo]

I only just read this bit properly sorry. You should have had location services turned on even though you had no cell connection. If location services was off overall or off for that piece of software then there is no way it would work. Having location services turned on allows it access to the GPS (and all the other things), you don't need a cell connection for location services to be on.

Hope this all helps to things up :thumbsup:

[OICURMT]

Yes, we tried that when we were on the Lower Zambezi, but to no avail (no cell service). Didn't get any GPS reading until we hit Lusaka. We also set the timezone up to where we were, still to no avail. It was quite frustrating, but at least I had my Blackberry as the "backup plan". BTW: This -> http://www.trip-journal.com/ is the app my missus uses...

I'll play with her iPhone this evening to see if I did something stupid (a definite possibility)... we are planning a trip next year to Kruger, so I'd like to have it going if possible.

Thanks for the advice...
OIC!

[davewaldo]

No worries, I hope you can get it working. Iphones can be VERY frustrating sometimes, and pure gold other times :)