Originally Posted by
Looigi
Perhaps it's semantics, but Glympse reports your current position and speed (possibly based on the time between successive positions)
No, it's not "semantics". It
has to work this way.
A GPS datum is just a position associated with a time.
You need two data points (at least) to get speed and direction. (A compass is an alternative way to get direction but electronic compasses are not common.)
Originally Posted by
Looigi
but does not save all these coordinates for a ride on the phone or web and does not generate a track you can view or file to download. It only shows current position, hence I say that it doesn't record tracks or data.
The
hard part is getting the data. It's
easy to record it.
The only important difference between Glympse and a track-recorder is the frequency of data (coordinates) collection. (Whether or not they
save the data is a trivial difference.)
* If you don't need the detailed recorded-track, then what Glympse does is going to use less power.
* If you need the detailed recorded-track, then what the Garmin 810 does is (likely) going to use less power.
It takes some time for a GPS unit to start aquiring good data. With assisted GPS (aGPS), cell-phones can often get a lock on an accurate position more quickly. That feature would be quite useful to an app that turned-on the GPS periodically.
Originally Posted by
Looigi
I have several Garmins (non 810 or 510 versions) and they do what I want, which is record tracks and ride data creating files I can save, view or further analyze. Glympse serves a different purpose, to report my current position to interested observers (spouse, next of kin, whatever).
The Garmin 810/510 do both these things at once. Though, I don't see a big advantage of what they do over what you are doing with the 800 and Glympse separately
except if you wanted to use an iPhone.