Originally Posted by
njkayaker
^^^
Your suggestion to taken a picture every half hour doesn't make any sense.
And your other post is still wrong.
Well since you had a whole week to add something constructive to the thread and didn't - thanks for nothing - again!
I've used iPhones for traveling (or tried to) with mixed results. The first generation iPhones has no GPS capabilities. Zip, nada, nothing. But they did allow some navigation referencing by trilateration using cell tower and Wi-Fi network locations. It was entirely dependent on signal reception of my service provider.
Then there was the 3G versions, which were designed to work optimally on A-GPS. Mostly because this is an iPhone and not an iGPS unit. Which means its primary function is as a phone which is normally used intermintantly in populated areas where there are lots of metal structures, and lots of signal towers. A lousy environment for GPS reception but ideal for A-GPS.
And as long as there's good reception - Google Maps and a number of other Internet services completely negated any need for any pure GPS functionality for me. And signal strength was usually reasonable along most highways and around populated areas. So can you go pure GPS? Sure - except that A-GPS gets a fix faster anyway, and if you're in a 'no reception' area, you might still get a GPS signal, but thats pretty useless without something to reference it against or a way to store the information.
Which is pretty much what most GPS applications do. They let you download maps and other references so that you have something to plot co-ordinates against. Except for some of the better packages. For some reason those include their own GPS antenna, a protective case and an additional battery pack.
Maybe because there's five or six different kinds of GPS antennas and the one for the iPhone was picked for small size - not stand-alone performance. As mentioned - this is an iPhone - not an iGPS unit and its EXPECTED to be used with A-GPS.
Then there's the other little note that all those GPS applications for iPhones include at the bottom of the page:
Continued use of GPS running on the background can dramatically reduce battery life.
Yeah - most people using GPS applications on an iPhone find they run out of juice pretty quick - maybe after 4 or five hours. With some judicious planning and by shutting down as much as possibe, its possible to get 10 to 12 hours, and that can be stretched using an auxiliary battery pack, but I've always had to have access to an electrical source ON A DAILY BASIS when using any GPS application. Which is fine for people that travel by car or just do day trips or check into someplace with an electrical outlet every night. But I think this post included some pretty specific comments:
I'm about to go on a month-long tour and don't want the thing constantly updating a track; the battery drain would be too much.
So personally I think even attempting to use pure GPS on a 30 day tour would be a very frustrating experience. Without the assistance provided by A-GPS it could take up to 15 minutes to get an accurate fix, and so uploading a data point every half hour wouldn't necessarily be a radical departure from having the phone on continuously. And yeah - accurate fixs are so much of an issue that there are even applications out to tell you the accuracy of the GPS reading. I'm using GPS Status myself on an iPhone 4. Cause just because you get a reading doesn't make it accurate - you may have to wait longer to get a waypoint accurate to within a few meters instead of a few kilometers - or somewhere in the next county.
So on my last trip I just took pictures and used the time, date, and GPS positioning referenced in the EXIF data of the photos to plot my own maps when I got back. Still needed an external battery pack and still needed to watch battery management, but a lot less so. I also had photos to reference or insert and not just waypoints, and a lot less hassle. Not that I think you'd undertand all that - but a few other people here might.
Don't give up your day job.