I just wrote about it on my blog and I know a lot of SOTA activators do a bit of Geocaching too so you might be interested in a new application for the iPhone. I have been trying to avoid getting one but they keep getting more tempting and for me this is the most tempting one yet. It gives you the ability to get the location of the nearest cache wherever you are and a simulated compass point to guide there. You can even log your find in the field.
The people I work for produce a fair amount of IP that ends up in mobile phones. We have stuff in iPhones. Also in Blackberry and Nokia phones. Nobody here has an iPhone. If people are paying for their phone they have Nokias else they have a company Blackberry. That should tell you something about what the people who design the insides of these things think about them! Given the choice they don’t punt.
You should also check out the 3g coverage as the only UK network offering iPhones has pants coverage never mind HSDPA. Also the GPS devices in mobile phones have slow update rates, naff antennas and poor accuracy compared to a dedicated GPS. They suck the life out of a phone battery too as does any 3g data access.
So whilst the iPhone is a nice “oooooh, shiny” device, it’s not one that I’d punt for. And that cool looking geocaching app looks cute, I bet it’s useless in a rural UK environment. Caveat emptor!
I agree with you 100% Andy and you probably would not want to use it instead of a GPS. Where it might come in handy is if you are sat in a car park waiting for the misses to finish shopping and there is no-one on the radio you can turn it on and find there is a Geocache 200 yards away which you can bag. Out on the hills you would probably have checked what caches you are passing and have a proper GPS with you.
The things that stop me buying an iPhone are - It’s an Apple, it’s too expensive and it is locked to one network.
The reason I would like one is - there are loads of free application that do things that I have never seen on any other phone.
Regarding network coverage - See the comment on my blog.
Regarding network coverage - See the comment on my blog.
Should have gone there first!
I’ve not experimented with a 3g dongle, I just use my 3g handset connected either with a USB cable or via Bluetooth. It seems much better than a dongle because whilst it’s 3g with upto 3.6mbps HSDPA download performance and only 384k up it’s also a quadband GSM phone. When there’s no 3g coverage it roams onto 2g where it gives me EDGE or GPRS connectivity and I don’t think the 3g dongles do that. Either there’s 3g/HSDPA or there’s nothing. The result is if I can get a signal and I have the laptop with me (eeePC701 or a proper Windows laptop) then I can get a net connection. Strange though, I can get an internet connection using an external computer but in many cases the phone’s own browser wont work.
In reply to MM0FMF:
Vodaphone stick/dongles do GPRS as well a 3G - Green light indicates GPRS, Blue light indicates 3G and pale blue indicates high speed.
73 jim
Jeez - I thought my tesco pay as you go phone was complicated!
This was simplicity. In use as a phone you dial the number and talk, the phone figures out which band/mode it’ll work in. For data it was trivial.
Turn on Bluetooth on phone and PC, tell PC to search for devices, click on phone name, enter pairing number, PC finds out what services phone offers and lists them, click on DUN (dial up networking) and enter username & password (both blank) and data phone number (*99#) click save. Goto ControlPanel>Phones&Modems, select phone name, click advanced/options and enter magic command (AT+cgdcont=,“your_access_point_name” and click save. That took less than 5 minutes.
Then unplug the network cable, switch off wifi, double click on Bluetooth icon in task bar, double click DUN icon and with 10 secs PC is online. Click refresh in browser and up comes SOTAwatch. Easy peasy. Everything just worked first time. It was a little more involved on Linux, it took about 10minutes and I have to admit that I use a USB cable there.
The only downside is that when you hammer the net via the phone it eats the battery. A 30min voice call wont move the battery meter but the sametime online when you get HSDPA running and the battery meter can drop 2 blobs.
