GPS On The iPhone
Apple January 5th, 2009When I purchased the 3G iPhone, I didn’t think twice about the feature-set changes from the original iPhone. I was simply excited at the fact New Zealand would be one of the launching countries of the new phone after more than a years waiting.
The two new phone features over the original - 3G and GPS really didn’t interest me much on paper, however now having had the phone in hand for a few months I’ve really woken up to the true power of 3G and GPS capabilities.
I’ll be the first to admit when in larger cities, and on occasion even my own I’m a little directionally challenged, which becomes extremely frustrating when my mates pick up on the fact, and chirp in my ear sarcastically at every wrong turn.
Google Maps on the iPhone has helped me a number of times working out directions for myself, friends, and family including figuring out traveling times and distances to and from different cities/areas, including bus times and walking routes when available.
How has having GPS on your phone helped you in the past few months?
January 5th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Nice to see you back, Glenn!
The GPS feature on the iPhone is particularly impressive to me because of its fast lock-on. My own Nokia Navigator takes up to a minute to establish it’s position, but 90% of the time it’ll take the iPhone only a fraction of that to determine where I am.
Speed is everything in the industry, and the iPhone certainly has that…
January 5th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
GPS hasn’t made an impact on me at all because I know where I am (generally) at all times. Having maps with me is useful though. I lookup addresses and plot routes more often than I use GPS.
January 5th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
I do not have an iPhone, but I do have an iPod Touch. It’s extremely useful to use the “Current Location” features with just being connected to wifi at hotspots like Panera Bread or Starbucks.
Even though it’s not available everywhere, this feature has been extremely helpful in terms of finding useful places around me like pizza shops or grocery stores.
I’m just starting to drive, and I find it very useful.
January 5th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Hey Glenn! How have you been? Nice to have you back!
I think the GPS on the iPhone is really great, and can always come in handy.
January 5th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
I use my iPhone GPS to get a general idea or find out where I am. I’ve found it (maybe I’m a little fast) for driving navigation. I’ve found it gives me corners as I pass them.
I use my Sony Nav-U while in my car.
January 5th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Immensely. It is one of the most used features for me. Saved me purchasing a GPS unit for the car.
January 5th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
As much as I love the fact that I have a GPS on my iPhone, I hardy ever use it for anything practical. If I’m driving somewhere, I have a habit of either memorizing the route beforehand, or just printing a map (reading this is a lot easier than constantly turning on my iPhone).
It’s nice to have, and I have put it to use before - I hope that I can use it even more in the future.
January 5th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Great to hear that you’ll be blogging normally again Glenn. Hope you bring back the GlennWolsey Show on Youtube.
(Don’t have an iPhone so this comment is for this blog exactly but just wanted to say that)
January 5th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
Great post Glenn!
Glad to see your finally back!
January 5th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
Good to see your back to blogging again Glenn. Any chance we will see some new videos?
I don’t have an iPhone but I imagine that if I did I would find GPS useful every once and a while.
January 5th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
GPS has not so much helped me as it has opened up a whole new world of possibilities, including introducing me to the world of Geocaching.
Also: getting weather forecast for whereever I am (via 3rd party app), getting wikipedia entries for whereever I am.
Glad to see you getting back into blogging :)
January 5th, 2009 at 9:23 pm
Glad your back! I have found via Post Code the iPhone had got me to a location which the Germin sat nav in my car would only get me within 2 miles of the address I needed to go. Not often this happens but I now use the iPhone instead of the sat nav :)
January 5th, 2009 at 10:57 pm
I don’t use it on a daily basis, but its just brilliant for finding where you are, typing “pizza” or anything into the search, and seeing every pizza-related restaurant around you. Even all their details are there so you can book a table and in many cases, view their menu online.
I’d love to see turn-by-turn directions coming to the iPhone in the near future (no doubt at least in development), which would really turn it into a powerful GPS unit for me. Figuring a map while driving can be a little annoying at times.
Great post :)
January 5th, 2009 at 11:18 pm
I’m not using it on a daily basis. I use the current location feature and the Cams Ahoy! Europe app while I’m driving. Overall, the iPhone GPS has great reception. Even if you’re in a building or in the car.
Great to see you blogging again Glenn!
January 6th, 2009 at 1:17 am
I use it in conjunction with Trails to provide a GPS log of my Photography trips, which I then marry up to my photos. It is apparently more accurate than a Garmin device!
January 6th, 2009 at 6:44 am
I didn’t think the GPS feature would be as useful as it has been; but it really is. On the old iPhone I would often search for the street name I was on, and then work from there, which was a pain but workable. This is just so much better.
Also; the 3G speed difference really is pretty noticeable. Pleased with that too.
January 7th, 2009 at 9:52 am
I’ve iPhone 3G since October ‘08. I live in Moscow, Russia, but here we have problems with wi-fi and gprs. We don’t have 3G here.
So I tried several times use Maps, but it’s unbelievable to wait until map load. Maybe a little bit faster internet and it would really be helpful for me, because I often need to understand where am I and where should I go.
January 7th, 2009 at 11:53 am
Great to see a new post. 3G and GPS hasnt really helped much to tell you the truth, I know my area pretty well. Especially since Canada is on a block system everything is pretty easy. But otherwise its pretty cool that it can find pretty much where you are.
January 16th, 2009 at 8:57 am
man..i thought u were kidnapped or something…didn’t see for a long time …this was one site I followed and all of a sudden you stopped blogging.
January 17th, 2009 at 9:16 am
Glenn, Shoot me a email, i’m looking to have some design work done! Your the same glenn who’s designing templates for template monster?
January 20th, 2009 at 7:50 am
I don’t think you have the right Glenn there Shaun… Glenn has a blog, but he doesn’t do html/css/design that I’ve ever seen. At one point he used to regularly post entries & photos but not so much any more. He must have better things to do I guess.
February 2nd, 2009 at 12:35 pm
What happened to desktop vibes?
February 2nd, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Darren,
Desktop Vibes is preparing for a re-launch in the near future :)
February 4th, 2009 at 2:04 am
Whatever. I recall seeing a software review or comment there that I was looking for. Unfortunately, the new splash screen prevented me from searching the old content. I eventually found what I needed over at TUAW. I really don’t understand the point of taking the old site down while you make a new one… make a sandbox, copy the DB tables and run mysql on a different port or something. You don’t see major sites go down before they relaunch? Seriously lame. On the same lines… I thought Glenn was going to get back into blogging this year? So much for seeing any new content this year. At this rate, there will be 12 posts for the year. Yawn.
February 6th, 2009 at 9:12 am
Darren,
Allow me to address your concerns. I understand that it may be frustrating not being able to access certain data as Desktop Vibes is currently down. But there are a couple of reasons why this has been done:
Firstly, Desktop Vibes is going in a very new and different direction. If we were to flip the switch and have it change over straight away people may be a little confused when all the old posts have disappeared, there is a new design and posts that are on a different topic. People will have a little warning about the change. Secondly, we really want to build up a bit of hype. If the site is there doing nothing so one will know it’s about to change!
As you might have been able to work out, this is more than an average relaunch.
I hope you understand and please contact me (me@jonathandavies.org.uk) if you have any other concerns or queries.
Jonathan (Desktop Vibes - Editor)
March 3rd, 2009 at 12:50 am
Well I liked the GPS feature so much, I created an App to use it as a location tagging/logging tool :) Check it out if you like, it’s called ‘GPS Log’