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SatMap have quietly released a new firmware, v1.4, for their SatMap Active 10 devices. As well as addressing a range of bugs, the full Changelog is included in this article. Highlights include better Geocaching.com support, better power management, including hibernation support. For the full changelog, read the rest of the article…
SatMap, the makes of the SatMap Active 10 (and SatMap Active 10 Plus), have this week released a new version of their PC software, and a new firmware for the Active 10 devices to go with it. For us, the key new feature is the support of geocaching.com GPX files, giving you a full range of information about the geocaches; offering hints, cache descriptions, terrain, difficulty, and logs. The changes to the PC software include:
As for the firmware, which is needed to support these new features, it also includes:
Updates
To us, the addition of the geocaching support really brings this device forward as a single, all-encompassing device which provides the benefit of OS maps as well as acting as an all-round device suitable for anyone who spends time in the countryside.
When we covered SatMap’s new Route Planner and Route Share last week, we noted that this would no longer be free to new purchasers of the Active 10 from today (and existing purchasers only have until the end of March to register for free access). Well, SatMap have today extended their range with the Active 10 Plus, which will include free access to both these services. On top of the standard Active 10 device, it will also offer postcode based lookup facilities, a new function not previously available on the Active 10, and due to license limitations, will not be available for retro-fitting to the Active 10 either.
The Active 10 Plus will retail for £379.99, compared to £299.99 for Active 10. As well as access to the Route Planner and Route Share services (via a voucher in the box), the Active 10 Plus also ships with a World Base Map, a Lithium Polymer Battery (the unit will also take AA Batteries), a wall charger (with multi-country adaptors), and another voucher for 1/3 off a 60km² site-centred map (worth £35).
The new 1:5 million World Base Map allows better use of the device outside of the UK (or the main area you have bought maps for), providing some basic level of mapping. For comparison, the Active 10 Plus ships with this 1:5 million base map, a UK 1:1 million high level OS map, and a 1:250,000 raster road map of the UK. For those existing Active 10 users who would like this world base map, it is available as an upgrade for £39.99 plus postage.
The World Base Map is part of the European wide launch of the device, with plans to release OS type mapping for a number of Western European countries by Easter this year, including The Netherlands and Norway, where the device is already on sale.
Given the range of extras the Active 10 Plus ships with, it’s likely to count for the majority of sales moving forward.
Although still a little expensive (even as a waterproof GPS unit with access to UK OS Maps), if SatMap improved their geocaching support within the device’s software (and their FAQ says they are looking to incorporate in the future), we think they would sell even more units.
More information direct from SatMap here.
Mapomatic, who produce free Garmin maps from the OpenStreetMap data, have published their review of the Garmin Oregon, and considered whether it, or the Garmin Colorado is a better device for going geocaching.
Head over to read their review, and if you own a Garmin device which can have additional maps loaded onto it, then you might want to try out their Garmin UK OSM Map, or their specialised Garmin UK OSM Cycle Map (which puts greater emphasise on cycle routes) or even their Garmin UK OSM Canal Map (which adds lots of additional canals and rivers, and even shows lockgates; useful for those planning a summer trip on the water).
I’ve been a big fan of TripIt for the last year or so. Whenever you receive an email confirmation of a flight, a hotel booking, hire car, even a train ticket reservation, you can forward this email to TripIt and they will convert it into a travel itinerary for you. This puts all your travel information into one single location. As they support iCal and RSS feeds, you can then get this information into other sources, such as your Calendar or other services.
About a month ago, TripIt announced a developer API program, which allows other companies (with your approval) to access this data, and the fruits of this are already starting to show with 2 iPhone applications now offering TripIt integration to enhance your travelling…
FlightTrack Pro (shown above, currently £5.99) is the first such app, which is designed to track all your flight details for you, with the ability to not only access the flight information, but also live weather, flight route maps, real-time flight status updates, airport time difference information, airport delays and closures, and will, in their latest version, also support importing the flight information from TripIt. Some of these features, including the TripIt support only come with the Pro version, so this is likely to be more useful to the regular traveller.
Now, most of this information is already available, but this app brings together a whole raft of different websites to bring that information onto a single screen, and that’s key to us; that little extra effort in integrating all that information can be so useful to some people. FlightTrack Pro should be able to link your TripIt information to airport information, thereby providing additional information such as last minute gate changes etc. It even features an offline mode to work whilst you are travelling at 30,000 feet and want to check the details of the airport you are arriving at, or even your next flight (although you won’t have information to the real-time updates).
If your travel plans don’t always revolve around flights, then TravelTracker (below, currently £11.99) may be a better app…
This covers all type of travel, allowing you to enter information on flights, trains, hotels, car rentals, meetings and driving, but again, offers that ability to integrate with TripIt to collect the data. Given that TripIt can pretty much handle all of those types of travel, it seems a nice combination to provide easy access to your trip data. It’s not as polished in some areas, eg accessing real time flight status takes you to a web page, whereas FlightTrack Pro builds the information into the application itself, but it does support some simple expense management, and even will track your frequent traveller cards and programs. As well as supporting the iPhone, they also support the iPod Touch.
Which one would we choose; well that’s the nice thing; use TripIt to automatically process the emails you are sent when you book the travel in the first place (they also support the major travel agents which are commonly used by corporate travellers), and then get the data fed seamlessly into both application; given you the best of both worlds; FlightTrack Pro for the best handling of the flights, with TravelTracker handling the rest of the travel.
What about once you’ve arrived, and you want to make notes and record information about where you have been, and what you have seen; well, maybe Geotags for iPhone is a good solution for you…
Geotags for iPhone is a free map-based application for the iPhone, allowing you to keep a record of places and things you have seen of interest, by marking on the map where you found them. As well as written notes, it supports photos and short audio files. Once you have collected the information, it can be viewed in Google Earth. Of course, you can achieve similar things with other services, such as Brightkite, which also offers a wider variety of method of locating yourself, and offers more of an overall social networking experience via their Brightkite for iPhone client, which is also free.
Finally, if geocaching is your thing (and if not, why not?!) then we’ve covered geocaching for the iPhone before here.
This level of integration with services such as TripIt, potentially resulting in not having to enter the information by hand on any system appeals to me, and I hope that over the next few months, we start seeing similar TripIt integration into Android, Symbian and Windows Mobile applications for non-iPhone using travellers.
Some content about Geotags for iPhone from TUAW; thanks to Mark at Automated Home for the link.
Although it won’t appear for a few more days whilst the app goes through Apple’s review, the team behind Geocaching.com have written their own iPhone client. The cost of the application is $9.99 (UK price to be confirmed) and has the functionality you need to look up and seek out caches using the networking and location-based features of the iPhone 3G. It also works with the iPod Touch and first gen iPhone though you will need WiFi for the Touch and the compass won’t work.
The first release will not have the feature to log caches or filter hides and finds, but it will be included as a free upgrade as we add that functionality – hopefully over the next month. We wanted to get the application out as soon as possible since the demand was so high for it.
Some non-obvious features:
Some more screenshots:
Pictures courtesy of Geocaching.com.
If you like geocaching (see geocaching.com for more information if you don’t know what’s involved), and have recently purchased an iPhone with GPS, then this article will be for you. TUAW have written up a full step by step guide on Geocaching with an iPhone. We’ve since heard at least one person is working on a true geocaching application for the iPhone, but until it’s out, this seems the best option.
Picture courtesy of TUAW, Story via Multimedia-PCs, and thanks to Mark at Automated Home.
Although it’s only been out a few months, a new software update has been released for the Garmin Forerunner 405, Garmin’s newest GPS based training watch. If you head off to the Forerunner 405 software page, you’ll find more details about the new version. If you have already set your Forerunner to connect to your PC, then you should be able to simple connect your ANT USB Stick, and update the device wirelessly. Unlike most Garmin GPS / SatNav units, this device does not use the traditional Garmin WebUpdater to update, but does take advantage of the Garmin Communicator plugin (which is commonly used to get geocaches from sites such as Geocaching.com into yoru GPS). Right now, this plugin is Windows only, but Garmin assure us they hope to have Mac support in Autumn 2008.
The feature list of v2.2 includes:
Like many software updates, we would recommend you think carefully before applying this update, although we’ve generally found Garmin updates to be well worth applying.
Whilst everyone is covering the iPhone story in greater detail than we could do it justice, we’re going to cover the formal announcement of the Garmin Oregon. We covered much of the spec earlier in the week here, but here’s some more formal information from Garmin, including some comparisons with the Garmin Colorado range.
The 200 (above left) will just have the basemap, whereas the 300 (above right) has the shaded relief worldwide basemap. The 400 series adds particular US maps (just like the Colorado), so will not hit the UK. Neither the 200 or 300 have detailed maps preloaded, but both have a microSD card, as well as their internal memory for storing those additional maps.
The 300 also includes the wireless support, for the exchange of tracks, waypoints and geocaches between other Oregon units and Colorado models. It’s also equipped with a barometric altimeter and electronic compass and is compatible with Garmin’s heart-rate monitors and speed/cadence sensors (all of these features are missing on the 200, so we suspect the 300 will be the biggest seller).
Geocaching is even easier with the Oregon, which quickly downloads online information for every cache, such as location, terrain, difficulty, hints and description, so that you don’t have to take printouts with you. Oregon users can experience Wherigo™, the newest GPS-based activity from Groundspeak, the people who made geocaching a worldwide phenomenon. Wherigo (pronounced “where I go”) is a toolset for creating and completing adventure games, historical tours or other innovative activities in the real world.
With the 3″ touchscreen, we think this is going to be a big seller in the coming months. All models should be available in the US by the end of the month, although we’re still waiting to hear when they’ll be on sale in the UK.
The current rumours flying around the internet are that Garmin is going to release a new range of GPS devices in the next few weeks. The Oregon range will be a similar device to the Garmin Colorado although it will be slightly smaller, and feature a touchscreen. One colleague we recently spoke with said he was always trying to use the Colorado screen as a touchscreen, so welcomed a true touchscreen unit.
Although Garmin are usually tight lipped about new devices, it appears that somehow these devices made it onto both Amazon and Buy.com before being removed. As such, a fairly reliable spec has been obtained, and this includes:
The specs above are for the 200 unit, with a 300, and a range of 400 units (similar to the Colorado 400 range) will also be available in the US. Given the main difference between the Colorado 300 and 400 models is the amount of memory to fit in the included US maps on the 400 range, we suspect that again the 400 range may not make it to the UK, leaving us with the 200 and 300 though. The main missing feature from the Colorado will be the Naviwheel, which isn’t needed due to the touchscreen.
Story via the Groundspeak Geocaching.com forums (no registration required to view).
GPXView started out as simply as a viewer for the geocaching.com GPX files used by geocachers. However, it’s now expanded, and offers a near paper-less experience for those who own a Nokia Internet Tablet, and even has basic GPS support for those with a Bluetooth GPS or an N810 (with built in GPS).
The author plans to integrate the program into with Maemo Mapper or into navit, but in the meantime head off to his website for more screenshots and the install link.
Garmin have announced agreements with MapQuest and Google Maps to allow you to send trips and destinations direct from the MapQuest / Google Maps website to your Garmin GPS. For MapQuest, this will utilise the “Send to GPS” option which will become Garmin compatible sometime this month, whereas the function is already available from Garmin. This will use the Garmin Communicator Plugin, which is already in use on other websites, such as Geocaching.com to transfer information to Garmin GPS units. Not all devices support full trip (route) details being transferred to them, but all seem to support a single destination being sent.
Even before the Garmin Colorado starts shipping in any serious quantities in the UK, Garmin have updated the firmware in these units based on user feedback. The main features added are:
As well as the products already mentioned, Garmin have launched support for the new Geocaching.com created WhereIGo service in their new Garmin Colorado range. WhereIGo is a toolset for creating and playing GPS-based adventures in the real world. Garmin have already had some GPS-based games on their GPS devices, but this is the first time they have supported a third party solution, and as it’s developed by Geocaching.com, we expect it will become popular over time. As you move around in the real world, your handheld device will allow you to experience media-rich content relating to your location. This experience could be a tour guide, an adventure game, or anything else dreamed up by authors.
