Being un-lost in Donald's iPhone

As promised here is a bit of an overview of the iPhones mapping capability in the backwoods of Wanaka. As an on-going comment though what is significant is that having had my phone for a few days now I've not made nor received a phone call. No I don't feel unloved [No really... no. 021 539 859], this illustrates the versatility, depth and richness of goodies, and that my inner geek will be fully engaged for sometime not talking!

Last week I climbed Rocky Top near Glendhu Bay and on the easy part of the track I turned on my Location Services.

Next came the crunch test: I attempted to use the device to navigate, as I would from my Garmin Etrex, from waypoint to waypoint on the hill - in this case approx. 2 Km apart. This it failed to do, but did offer two things: details of the road route nearby in relation to Glendhu camping ground, and notification that walking view was compromised and would not work. Considering that some handheld GPS units can fool you into thinking they're getting you there, which can be dangerously misleading, I thought this advice was very good and responsible.

At this point I'm assuming the GPS side of things is driven mainly by cell phone tower triangulation, with limited satellite acquisitions. Also on the "to do" list is to find out if I can establish reference points such as latitude and longitude without launching the iPhone's web browser, or Maps/Google Maps, the other dedicated web browser onboard.

In the upcoming version 3 of the iPhone's Operating System X, I'm guessing these instructions will be spoken.

Obviously the Map view is going to be useful even in rural localities - well anywhere there are roads and/or coverage really, but if we compare it to an outdoors GPS it won't score well, however many of the real thing don't operate very well in our NZ mountains and bush anyway [it's potentially highly dangerous to assume they will, just as it's foolish to expect a cell phone to function as an emergency resource].

Lastly and what a time saving feature it is, if you don't know where you are, then using Directions you just type in where you want to go e.g Paradiso Wanaka, and as the starting point default is your current position the directions are generated on that basis.

My next post will probably be on the painless and inexpensive syncing I've set up of iCal on the phone with iCal on my Mac. Already this is a huge boon.... updated and new diary entries at either end are "pushed" to the other. No cables, no wireless hook up, no bluetooth etc, and no clicking syncing buttons in iTunes. It just happens in a timely manner!

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