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gpspassion
87495 Posts |
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mxtime
USA
65 Posts |
 Posted - 03 août 2008 : 19:25:30
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quote:
Originally posted by gpspassion
Count me in ;-) The iPhone 3G in good company :
I sure hope you dont have voice turned on for all those gps's... :) |
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gpspassion
87495 Posts |
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gpspassion
87495 Posts |
Posted - 10 août 2008 : 01:15:31
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Testing Speedbox on the road, it takes about 30 seconds to "settle in" (jumps from 50 to 250kph for 115kph actual), but then it's quite accurate :
Firmware 2.0.1 is out apparently, haven't had a chance to install it yet. |
Discounts and Assistance/Réductions et Assistance (Club GpsPasSion) / Où commencer? |
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Boyd
USA
1125 Posts |
Posted - 15 août 2008 : 20:06:19
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(Just realized this was a better place to post this, so I deleted my original from the News Forum and am adding it to this thread)
Just played with Google maps on my new iPhone during about a 20 minute drive. While I was in an area with a strong (all bars) EDGE signal, the screen did a very good job of keeping up with me while displaying the satellite photo plus overlaid roads. Very cool! With the phone plugged into a car charger the screen stayed on at full brightness the whole time.
Moving into an area with a weak (2 bar) signal, it still worked but couldn't really keep the screen refreshed fast enough. It continues to scroll while the image is drawn tile by tile. The refresh depends on your zoom level of course. Closer zooms require more faster refresh. Zooming farther out initially takes time to draw the full screen, but does a better job scrolling because the increments are smaller. Also, driving on a "diagonal" (NorthWest for example) is slower to refresh then the cardinal directions since 2 sides of the screen are involved.
After the 20 minute drive I was surprised when the battery indicator registered lower than when I had started (in spite of running on the car charger the whole time). It seems like the application, screen, GPS and network draw a LOT of power. The back of the phone was also very warm.
Here's a screenshot along with another at the same time showing US Topo 2008 on my Nuvi 5000:
All in all, I'm impressed. It also worked very well wandering around my land (I have an outside wifi antenna which reaches 400 ft or more  ). But judging by the battery drain, this isn't going to be such a useful handheld without external power. |
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gpspassion
87495 Posts |
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Boyd
USA
1125 Posts |
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Boyd
USA
1125 Posts |
Posted - 23 août 2008 : 22:51:51
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Well I caved in and bought Earthscape. Wow! Very impressive performance for a phone application. Using Wifi I am seeing results more or less comparable to those in the video above. Works well over 3g as well, and is still usable with an EDGE connection.
There have been some complaints about poor levels of detail, but this has not been my experience so far. In fact, for my area, the resolution of the earthscape images is significantly better than Google Maps and Google Earth. Last year Google changed data suppliers for Southern New Jersey, and the new images are terrible - much lower resolution, poor contrast, and dense summer foliage obsuring many details. The data in Earthscape is actually the same which Google used prior to their change, and comes from the State of New Jersey. So for use around my home Earthscape is a great addition to the built-in Google Maps application.
There are a lot of features I'd like to see in Earthscape, but I'm sure they will come in future updates. For now, it's a very nice first effort though and well worth the $10 price IMO. |
Edited by - Boyd on 23 août 2008 22:53:57 |
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paulkbiba
USA
5037 Posts |
Posted - 24 août 2008 : 00:24:44
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Been testing out Pathtracker and it works like a charm - at least while walking. I haven't tried it while driving yet. This means that I will no longer have to carry my Garmin Forerunner 205 when I do my exercise walk. It's nice to have to carry only one thing. I can also compare my times by saving the paths to the Pathtracker site. I carried them both for a couple of days and found that the measured distance and average speed was pretty much the same for both. Not enough distance to bother with. Here's a typical track I uploaded to their site:
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Don't forget the GPSPassion Club! |
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gpspassion
87495 Posts |
Posted - 24 août 2008 : 02:58:11
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I'm sseing a few jumps in your track? I wasn't too impressed by the accuracy of the iPhone during my hike the other day upon reviewing it, but couldn't really compare it to the 60CSx as I had set it to log every 1 minute instead of every one second, will try to do better tomorrow! The ability to save the track directly to a website is certainly nice.
@Boyd - thanks for the feedback on Earthscape, I'm not sure I understand what it really does, a mobile Google Earth it seems ? No GPS support ? But based on your positive comments, I'll probably give it a go ;-)
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Discounts and Assistance/Réductions et Assistance (Club GpsPasSion) / Où commencer? |
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paulkbiba
USA
5037 Posts |
Posted - 24 août 2008 : 05:58:24
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Those aren't jumps. They are when I left the road to go into a shopping center and a local store. At least on these simple tracks the larger view shows that accuracy was almost dead on, even following me into the shopping center's parking lot and right to the door of the supermarket where I paused the recording and then it seemed to pick up almost exactly when I unpaused it after coming out.
Now that we have a program like this I hope to take the iPhone into NY and do my Wall Street drive and compare it to the built in SiRFIII chip in my MWg Zinc II. That will be very interesting. |
Don't forget the GPSPassion Club! |
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Boyd
USA
1125 Posts |
Posted - 24 août 2008 : 16:16:12
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quote:
Originally posted by gpspassion
@Boyd - thanks for the feedback on Earthscape, I'm not sure I understand what it really does, a mobile Google Earth it seems ? No GPS support ? But based on your positive comments, I'll probably give it a go ;-)
Yes, it's like a stripped down version of Google Earth. It's mainly useful for exploring the map, or just impressing your friends . A "pro" version is supposed to be in the works with more features.
It does have limited GPS support. There's a crosshairs icon, like Google Maps, and when you tap it, the view zooms in to your current location. Unfortunately it won't track you and there is no map symbol indicating your position, but the view is centered on your location.
Navigating in 3d view is a bit confusing on the touch screen. From what I can tell, dragging with two fingers gives a flyover effect. Dragging vertically with one finger zooms into the current view, dragging sideways rotates the view.
Seems to work best to zoom way in to either your current position or a location which interests you while in 2d mode. Then switch to 3d mode to fly around it. |
Edited by - Boyd on 24 août 2008 16:16:52 |
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gpspassion
87495 Posts |
Posted - 25 août 2008 : 20:02:29
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Thanks, certainly quite tempting!
Did some more walking with Path Tracker yesterday, still need to compare the track to the 60CSx, but I can confirm you get about 2 hours of battery life, this is not enough unless it's a short hike. In comparison current Windows Mobile PDAs like the HTC Diamond that has been panned for its dreadful battery life gets about the same with full GPS navigation with TomTom.
Talking about battery life, I've recently installed Bossprefs (via Cydia on JailBroken iPhone) and you can choose to see the remaining battery as a percentage, more accurate than the current bar. That application also lets you force 2G (better battery life in theory) and stop data connections (handy if you're roaming). |
Discounts and Assistance/Réductions et Assistance (Club GpsPasSion) / Où commencer? |
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paulkbiba
USA
5037 Posts |
Posted - 26 août 2008 : 00:42:21
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| "Force 2G" ? There is a setting for that in the current phone. Go to Settings/General/Network. From there you can turn 3G on or off and turn data roaming on or off also. Battery life will be a real problem with using the iPhone as a navigation device. I can get about 2 1/2 hours, which isn't really acceptable for navigation purposes. That's with 3G off, Bluetooth off, and the screen at a very low brightness level. |
Don't forget the GPSPassion Club! |
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gpspassion
87495 Posts |
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[TOPIC] GPS on the new iPhone v2 - Apps, Tips
