Favorite iPhone and Android gps apps

[berberry]

I've seen some references to various interesting gps apps in some of the threads on this board, but unless I've missed it (entirely possible but search isn't turning up anything) there hasn't been a topic dedicated to our favorites.

I have a very definite favorite.  It's called everytrail and it "records" trips on your smartphone by silently logging your coordinates as you travel, at regular intervals, between the time you click 'start' and the time you click 'stop'.  The resulting files don't seem to take up much space, at least in and of themselves.  A key feature of the program, however, encourages you to take pictures and/or videos along the way.  You post these plus the gps record file to your account at the everytrail website.

Once the gps record and the photos/videos are uploaded, you save them as a trip.  Then look at the map and see your marked route, highlighted with red dots all about the place.  These are the locations where you took photos.  You'll probably notice quickly that some of the dots are wildly out-of-place.  Not to worry, you simply correct them automatically with one click.  I'd tell you what the button is labelled but I've forgotten and I don't happen to have a trip that I want to upload at the moment.  It's an obvious button; you won't have trouble finding it.

Once done, you can load your trip's page and retrace it virtually.  Watch as you move along the map and see your pictures and videos as you pass the relevant locations.

Everytrail is primarily a global community of hikers.  Since I only recently discovered them, I've only recorded two hikes:  Vicksburg National Military Park and Mississippi Petrified Forest. 

Despite everytrail's emphasis on hiking, it didn't take me long to realize that a lot of people upload trips recorded from highways.  As you'd expect, scenic drives are popular, and because it's a global site you can enjoy both hikes and drives recorded all over the world.  I'm not on facebook or twitter, but many of the members are and there are tools available for creating interfaces between your everytrail account and those networks.  The everytrail app is available in iphone and android versions.

So what's your favorite gps and/or road-related app?

[PAHighways]

I use Trapster and Waze on my iPhone.  Both are crowd-sourced apps that provide "man-on-the-scene" reports about road and traffic conditions, speed traps, red light camera locations, etc.

[realjd]

I tried transfer, but got turned off by the fact that local idiot users were too dumb to know the difference between traffic sensor cameras at traffic lights and actual red light cameras. The maps become useless when every single intersection in town is listed as a red light camera trap.

MotionX GPS is good. I tend to not use my phone for GPS purposes other than foot navigation in cities with Google Maps. I have a Garmin nuvi for the car and a Garmin eTrex for hiking, bike riding, and kayaking.

[hbelkins]

I'm an EveryTrail user and have been posting the logs from my roadtrips and also the tours at the meets I attend.

For a true GPS app, I have CoPilot Live Link. They update the maps frequently and you can post your location to Facebook. I like it because it has county boundaries marked, unlike Google Maps, and it's a true GPS app that doesn't require a cell connection to download the map. There is an older version that I have as well as a newer version that I don't like as well. There are separate versions for iPhone and iPad. The older version's maps are frequently updated, but the updates are huge (a gig each).

[realjd]

I'm an EveryTrail user and have been posting the logs from my roadtrips and also the tours at the meets I attend.

For a true GPS app, I have CoPilot Live Link. They update the maps frequently and you can post your location to Facebook. I like it because it has county boundaries marked, unlike Google Maps, and it's a true GPS app that doesn't require a cell connection to download the map. There is an older version that I have as well as a newer version that I don't like as well. There are separate versions for iPhone and iPad. The older version's maps are frequently updated, but the updates are huge (a gig each).

Is it able to get a GPS fix without a cell connection? Most cell phones use what they call AGPS (a for assisted) where the actual mathematical processing to calculate locational fix is offloaded to a cell phone company server. No cell service, no GPS fix.

[empirestate]

For on-line navigation/maps (iPhone), I have Google of course, MapQuest and MotionX...the last is by far the snazziest and it uses Bing Maps, so I pretty much have that triumvirate on hand. :-)

For off-line nav, I have the original turn-by-turn suite, GMap...which seems to have fallen off the face of the earth since, but it still shows me a map and finds my position when I'm out of cell range. I sometimes use it on airplanes (but it's not well suited for the purpose).

I have the SigAlert app for traffic.

For general interstate travel, I have an app called State Lines, which outlines the differences in various state laws like speed limits, cellphone bans, right on red arrow, and can you get booze in the grocery store?

Other assorted apps I have are Google Earth, NYCMate for transit maps, Topo Maps for USGS porn, and UpNext 3D cities, which is flashy but not too useful. Oh, and a GPS location alarm.

[vtk]

My G2 smartphone came with an app by Google called My Tracks which records GPS logs and saves them to multiple formats, including GPX which is just what I need for adding new roads to OpenStreetMap.  It has some other interesting features too, like graphing speed and elevation vs distance.

[hbelkins]

Is it able to get a GPS fix without a cell connection? Most cell phones use what they call AGPS (a for assisted) where the actual mathematical processing to calculate locational fix is offloaded to a cell phone company server. No cell service, no GPS fix.

Yes. The iPhone and iPad have full GPS chips in them. CoPilot will accurately find your location even if you have no cell service whatsoever.

I'm not sure if the wi-fi only iPad has a GPS chip in it or not, but the 3G-enabled iPad does.

[realjd]

Yes. The iPhone and iPad have full GPS chips in them. CoPilot will accurately find your location even if you have no cell service whatsoever.

I'm not sure if the wi-fi only iPad has a GPS chip in it or not, but the 3G-enabled iPad does.

The wi-fi only iPad does not have a GPS in it (it uses wi-fi triangulation), but when I tether mine to my iPhone, the iPhone pushes a GPS fix every 30 seconds or so to my iPad.

I didn't know the iPhone had a full GPS in it and not AGPS. Very cool.

[1995hoo]

My Acura has a sat-nav built into the dash (it uses a DVD drive that's in the trunk), so I don't generally use any sort of GPS app. I like using the system that came with the car because of the way it's integrated into the car with voice-control and the like.

What I did download for travel purposes is an app called "iExit" that finds points of interest at Interstate exits, such as hotels, restaurants, etc. You can bring up the listing for an exit and then tap a phone icon to call the place (say, you're driving and haven't decided where to stop for the night, so you bring up a list of places about 100 miles down the road, pick one, and call it to make a reservation). I find this useful because while my car's sat-nav has a POI database, it's not as easy to locate all the hotels at a given exit somewhere down the road unless you happen to know the postal address for that area.

The "State Lines" app "empirestate" mentions further up the thread sounds interesting and I may check that out. Thanks for the info.

[Truvelo]

I use Oruxmaps as it can use mapping from several online sources including Google. Like the previous post I have a dedicated unit for use in the car so I use the phone mainly when out walking.