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gpspassion
83562 Posts |
 Posted - 02 févr. 2007 : 12:50:10
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UPDATED 200902 : Google have recently added the Latitude feature to their Google Maps Mobile application to allow users to share their live position with friends. The position can be determined by various means, GSM, WiFi or GPS of course.
UPDATED 200812 : As seen on PPCReviews, the WM version gets upgraded to v2.3 and now benefits from Street View like the iPhone version !
 
UPDATED 200712 : Now with estimated GSM position, in v2
UPDATED 20071117 : new version available, adds saving of favorites and trips, see here for details.
Google Maps goes Windows Mobile with GPS
 
Running on a Treo 750v - the Eiffel Tower / A Wealth of options
Something many had been looking forward to, the availability of Google Maps application for Windows Mobile devices (PDAs or Smartphones) is now a reality, if you can't wait to try it download the installation .cab by using this link. Previously this was only available as a Java Applet that required a Java engine not pre-installed on all PDAs.
"OFF-BOARD" - Keep in mind that this is an "off-board" application, so your PDA will need to access the Google servers for maps, addresses, traffic and route calculation and use your bandwidth, not a problem with WiFi, but with GPRS/Edge/3G, your monthly allotment may get used up fast. To help control this, they do show the volume of data transfered.
Backtracking a bit, the first time we got a taste of mobile google maps was with Mobile GMaps in the summer of 2005 and then various other applications surfaced, such as Map4PDA or J2MEMap.
As can be seen above there are a wealth of features :- Road/Satellite maps
- Finding an adress
- Finding business around the current position : the sorting is odd with the numbering not used for the closest places, possibly some "marketing" ranking...
- Traffic overlay (in some areas such as SF Bay Area)
- Route calculation, but not real-time route tracking with distance to go and voice instructions
- GPS tracking : shows your current position on the map. Note that there are no settings, uses WM5.0 GID, you may need to launch another GPS app so it "sees" the GPS, required on HTCP3300
A very promising piece of software, but hopefully they will give more control over the GPS settings and not only rely on the automatic sensing that doesn't always work.
 
Questions, commments ? |
Discounts and Assistance/Réductions et Assistance (Club GpsPasSion) / Où commencer? |
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rancho1
350 Posts |
Posted - 04 févr. 2007 : 03:52:51
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The GPS functions do not seem to work on WM5 Smartphones.
I tried starting Mapopolis first to get the GPS going and it didn't help.
I have a Cingular 2125 with a Bluetooth GPS receiver. |
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gpspassion
83562 Posts |
Posted - 04 févr. 2007 : 04:12:15
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| Do you have the GPS Applet active in your system settings ? It seems to need that as no settings are available unfortunately. Works ok on the HTCP3300, but I had to start the GPS with another app first. |
Discounts and Assistance/Réductions et Assistance (Club GpsPasSion) / Où commencer? |
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rancho1
350 Posts |
Posted - 04 févr. 2007 : 04:19:04
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There are no system settings in this phone.
I just downloaded Windows Live Search and that one does work fine with my GPS!
Too bad about Google Maps.
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pchronos
7 Posts |
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rancho1
350 Posts |
Posted - 06 févr. 2007 : 17:04:53
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Maybe if you are really desperate to have Google Maps work with your GPS.
Since Windows Live Search works fine without that hacking, there is not much incentive to mess with all that.
Hopefully Google will update their software to just work. |
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pchronos
7 Posts |
Posted - 07 févr. 2007 : 20:03:54
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Microsoft does not follow it's own rules. They want developers to use the GPS API yet do not provide an interface to configure ( an existing functional ) service on WM5 Smartphones.
Who is really to blame here ?
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BigIrv
USA
2 Posts |
Posted - 11 févr. 2007 : 19:36:04
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I went to the web site on my iPAQ hw6945 and installed gmm. It recognized my hardware as a hw6900 and installed without errors.
Everything seems to work great. Routing, tracking, traffic (I live in Dallas).
Absolutely no complaints from me for this awesome free app.
I'm guessing Google is not far from releasing a fully functional hosted navigation application with voice turn by turn. |
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gpspassion
83562 Posts |
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Captain_Eric
17 Posts |
Posted - 11 févr. 2007 : 20:10:08
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| It will be interesting to see if one of the big guys (Google, Microsoft, etc) buy (or at least alliance with) one of the turn-by-turn navigation providers (TomTom, iGuidance, other). It seems turn by turn is needed for a full service mobile location-based-services package. |
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rancho1
350 Posts |
Posted - 12 févr. 2007 : 00:15:12
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This is the way things will be done in 3 to 5 years when phones have much more RAM and when 3G and faster wireless data networks are everywhere, but I'm sure there will be monthly fees. No more out of date maps and limited POI databases since it will all be "live."
Right now this is way too slow and clunky. It is barely usable if you have a passenger dealing with the device and giving the driver instructions.
Verizon has a phone GPS navigation system service now that is almost acceptable and should be nice in another year or two. |
Edited by - rancho1 on 12 févr. 2007 00:16:48 |
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Captain_Eric
17 Posts |
Posted - 12 févr. 2007 : 17:19:52
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| Yea, obviously, I agree with your thoughts, except maybe that it might come sooner than that. Microsoft Live and Google Maps (not to forget Yahoo! Maps) have the POI, maps, photos, and routing in fairly good shape. With the most recent improvements, they can locate the user on the map using GPS, but still don't have turn by turn navigation. Seems to me it's not a big jump to "merge" all that with turn by turn package like TomTom et al. Finally, I am reading that soon the turn by turn routing will use live traffic speed information, instead of calculating routes using posted speeds. I understand that Europe has had this for some time, but I imagine in the US that a)traffic will be tracked by following cell phone movements instead of sensors on the roadways (being tested in US and Europe now) b) the traffic data my come to the phone by cell signal instead of FM signal). Anyway, just a few thoughts. Time will tell, eh? |
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rancho1
350 Posts |
Posted - 12 févr. 2007 : 17:56:52
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I tried Microsoft Live maps and it works with my Smartphone and bluetooth GPS, but it way way too slow. It can't download and draw maps fast enough much less try to add turn by turn navigation to that system.
That's why I say it will be a few years since today's phones (of the size people want to carry around) don't have the needed processing power and RAM and the fast cellular data networks do not have adequate coverage areas at this time.
Maybe another 3 years.
What those services are good for at the moment is to find local POIs that are missing from your locally installed navigation system. However, you then have to manually enter the address informaton into your nav system.
Maybe TomTom or Garmin should add some kind of seamless wireless link to Google or Microsoft's databases so you can have access to more a newer POIs than can be included in the software. You would then have the best of both worlds. |
Edited by - rancho1 on 12 févr. 2007 18:15:05 |
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BigIrv
USA
2 Posts |
Posted - 13 févr. 2007 : 16:07:17
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quote:
Originally posted by gpspassion
Not sure about that, it's a different business, we'll see.
Is it seeing the GPS module of your 6945 ? Not seeing it on mine.
It works perfectly. I wonder if there is anything to downloading it directly to your phone? The web page recognized my handset as hw6900. Perhaps there are some tweaks for different handsets. |
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asdrew
USA
16 Posts |
Posted - 18 févr. 2007 : 04:38:44
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| Had no problem finding the GPS receiver on my 6945 too. I d/l'd it directly as well, with the web page recognizing my device. |
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gpspassion
83562 Posts |
Posted - 18 févr. 2007 : 10:48:20
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Yes, got it working too after a soft reset, not sure what the problem was.
Long drive yesterday and I had it running on the HTC P3600 with a built-in GPS too and even with a GPRS Edge connection map refreshing was fast enough to track my progression, with road or aerial maps. I had calculated a route too so I could see I was following it correctly.
I hope they will add some type of GPS information screen (position, speed, altitude, etc...) and also that they will switch to the same maps as Google Maps/Earth, in Europe these have been augmented by the 2.5m SPOT maps, but the PDA version still has the old maps, maybe some licensing issue. |
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