iphone gps apps

Now I do already have a dedicated chart-plotter system on board Secana for navigation, to which I can install data cards containing charts relating to different areas of the world. But being as how I am a belt and braces sort of person, I also have a basic hand held GPS receiver, but it will only give you a Latitude and Longitude position, eventually. The satellite acquisition time for this unit is painfully slow, I have known it to take 20 minutes to obtain a fix.. With this unit, you can't actually SEE where you are, but it gives you a position that you can then plot onto a chart. I also have a navigation program in my laptop, that with a USB GPS ariel fitted, so that it also doubles as a chart-plotter as well.

Okay so maybe braces and 2 belts. I also carry local area paper charts on board as a confirmation to the electronic GPS system, just in case it is switched off some day. I digress. Back to the iPhone story....... the iPhone 's big plus point is that you can get apps to do just about anything. (I'm still waiting for the one that cleans the house though, lol.) Amongst many others as I have said, it is possible to get navigation apps which because of the iPhone built in GPS receiver will show you in real time where you are. So they turn your iPhone into a portable handheld chart plotter. The features of the app make it as usable as my chart plotter, You can zoom in to see chart detail, navigation marks, and map features are shown, and water depth is also given. You can add way points (sign post to where you are heading), and create routes to follow.

The photo compilation to the right shows a some of the navigation apps which I have installed on my phone. Top is the opening screen oh iPhone navigation app. It states "All charts and maps are for reference purposes only.You assume all responsibility and risk for their use, and for the use of this software" as I said in the intro, never just blindly follow the directions which your GPS / sat nav is giving you. To use the app you agree to these terms! going on down the list are iPhone with navigation app running, and yes the red triangle is my actual position, next is the iPhone maps, comes as standard with the phone, can be thought as a "lite" version of sat nav, and the bottom pic is a navigation app called motionX GPS lite, which is a free version.

I hadn't even considered buying an iPhone until Brian, one of the lads that I work with got one. He's a bit ( well o.k. a lot to be honest) of a gadget freak, if it's new he has to have it. So he had the iPhone from day 1 almost. Then one night whilst we were at work, and nothing much was going on, he was showing me his latest app, it was one to identify the stars just by pointing the iPhone at the night sky . That particular program is called pocket universe, and utilizes the iPhone's built in compass, and motion sensor, and of course the GPS receiver, to track where you are in the world, which direction you are facing, and what stars you should be seeing, it then shows you an appropriate star map. But I digress......

He then started waxing lyrical about how good the iPhone was, and then he started to go on about all the apps he had for his phone. One of the ones he mentioned was Tom Tom the car sat nav program, which turns your iPhone into a fully featured sat nav system for your car. I asked if there were any apps for marine navigation, he said there were, and opened up the iTunes apps store to show me what selection there was. There were quite literally thousands of them, for any type of navigational situation that you could think of.I had a good look at the marine navigation apps, had a look at some of the features of the various apps, and was impressed, so that decided me, I had to have an iPhone. So you would be right to think, it's all Brian's fault I have an iPhone.

If you ever read this Brian, it's all your fault.

As I mentioned, amongst many other things, it is possible to get navigation apps, and because of the iPhone's built in GPS receiver will show you in real time where you are. So once I had my iPhone, I started looking at marine navigation apps for it. I settled on Navionics as they had the most marine navigation apps available. The areas covered by each app are, to say the least enormous for the price paid per app.

I currently have 6 different Navionics maps uploaded to my iPhone, ranging from U.K. (all the U.K. coastal waters) including Irish sea, out to include all of Ireland as well, it ranges as far East as Holland, then North, up the coast as far as Germany. Then South and Westward along the European coastline almost as far as Brest . If I was to buy each individual marine chart covered(each individual chart is between £10 + £15) it would have cost literally thousands of pounds, as I said above the area covered is enormous. This particular iPhone app cost me £15 . (My Garmin chart-plotter data card for the West coast of U.K. including Ireland and Irish sea cost £100 !) and covers about a quarter of the area of the Navionics app.

The other GPS apps, again by Navionics are for Europe, the Mediterranean Scandinavia, Caribbean, Australia. and New Zealand. Each map covers a vast area, and you can zoom in to whatever scale best suits your needs. All of the usual navigation marks are shown, and having checked it against my chart-plotter, and paper charts, they are as accurate as the chart-plotter as well, which is reassuring to know. The maps also show depths of water, and easily identifiable navigation marks, such as church towers, radio masts and the like, onshore.

So if you are a sailor looking for a backup navigation solution, then look at the iPhone. Pricey to buy, but I think well worth it.

As well as the navigation apps that I have bought for my iPhone, it also comes with basic navigation maps as standard for use when you are out and about. Not a full featured sat nav program, but it is useful for finding local streets, and places of interest. On top of this there are tons of free to install apps, for navigation, and anything else that you can think of.

There are apps that can help you find your car where you've parked it in a strange town. Basically, the app will store GPS co-ordinates when you park your car, and then will work out a route back to the car for you. Just to prove that the GPS receiver works, I used one of the Navionics apps to show my present position. As well as the Navionics apps which I have on my phone, I also have a few other apps with GPS functionality built into them.

So you now know I live in Douglas on the isle of Man. The red triangle is my current position. If you look to the right of the arrow, to Douglas bay, you will see that some detail is becoming clearer. As you zoom in, you will obviously get more and more detail. You get depth of water, navigation buoys, and any relevant features for navigating safely.

Unsurprisingly, when you consider the range of apps available for iPhone's you can get them to do pretty much any task you set them. My iPhone is now a fully featured, chart plotter, albeit a small screen one. I have also installed a sat nav app on my phone, so that I can confidently navigate anywhere in U.K, Ireland, and the Isle of Man (not that you can really get lost here 33 miles long x about 14 miles.

It has a camera built in, only 2 megapixel resolution I think, but it's still a camera. There is also an iPod built in so that I can listen to all my music, mine is 16 gigabytes of memory, so lots of space.. Battery life is pretty good for all it's asked to do. I have some games installed, and I also have tide planners apps which will let me know tide times and heights for just about anywhere in the world.

I believe that I did say I had several navigation apps on my phone. here is some screen shots of the others, these are all separate programs to the Navionics programs that I use. The first of them is PD maps. This is another free app, and again will function as a sat nav application. This is useful since once I've arrived somewhere,. I can find my way to wherever I need to go. The next app is called ships log, and as you might guess from the title is a digital logbook. but you can access maps as shown, so can see your position, this app cost a massive 59p - about 40cents or so. Next, although not strictly speaking a navigation app, it is a navigation tool, a compass. the final screen shot is the sat nav program called N Drive which I use, this covers UK, Isle of Man, and Ireland, Doesn't appear to be available now, or at least can't find it in the app store, but a good little program and so easy to use, even I can manage it

It has numerous other handy little bits and pieces to increase functionality. It's a contact manager, a sat nav system for the car, as well as the boat. If there is a wireless connection, I can access my emails, there is a web browser built in as standard, so I can surf if i am in a wi-fi hotspot. And yes I do have an app that tells me where all the wi-fi hotspots are in the U.K. So the iPhone does all this but there's one more thing I nearly forgot to mention.

You can ACTUALLY phone or text people with it as well as all the other stuff. How cool is that..