GPS on the iPhone

I have been doing some hikes lately, and I wanted an application that could record how long I was walking. I looked on the appstore and found quite a few applicaitons that were for GPS tracking or step tracking. Reading the reviews for these, however, did not give me a warm and fuzzy. There was not one program there that had more than 2.5 stars average.

The problems with the GPS tracking is that the GPS turns off if the screen is locked (Apple makes all applications run in the foreground only). Some of the applications made this clear in their description. The ones that didn't had many customer complaints. Some of the GPS applications included a camera icon so that you could take a picture while the application was running, and several applications suggested that you start your music (ipod) first and then run the tracking program. This doesn't sound the best user interface to me. There were also many complaints about the accuracy of the program, the programming crashing all the time, and that the application drained the battery. I was willing to pay for an application that works, but with the reviews, I decided to try "Track Thing" which was FREE.

The application was pretty easy to use. I went ahead and turned off the screen lock, and made sure I was fully charged before I set out on my 5 mile walk. The application uses GPS and so provides you with your coordinates (longitude, latitude, altitude, bearing) and provides you with a distance travelled (metric or imperial) and average speed. There is an ability to display a map, but this was default disabled, and so I left it that way because I thought that it would reduce battery consumption.

I have a SonyEricsson phone with built in GPS, and so I decided I would also take it along to compare with the iPhone. The SE application shows you a path that you are following (no map though) and also showed distance travelled and average mph.

After a couple of miles there was a difference in the distance travelled between the two devices. As I continued on this difference became greater. After the 5 miles, there was a difference of about .5 miles between the two devices. I actually think that the SonyEricsson device was more accurate based on my knowledge of the route I walked. I will try and test the iPhone on my way home tonight and compare with my car's odometer.

I think that I'll try another of the GPS trackers. Some of them will update your position on a web viewable map and so your loved ones can see where you are. That might be interesting. I think I may also try one of the pedomiter ones to see if they work for me.