Iphone GPS Kit review

[slowLC]

This is a quick review on the Ipone app called GPS kit. It is advertised as a true off road gps with ways to save pics as way points and actual navigation. I was skeptical but bought it anyways. Suprisingly it worked pretty great!! My wife and I took a little excursion to go bald eagle watching and this thing worked like a charm. It was dead nuts on at all times, and on the way back it saved us from going the wrong way at an intersection of trails that I didnt quite remember

Anyways, I am by no means a avid gps user, but from the things that I read, it was supposed to rival some of the much nicer ones. It downloads and saves what your doing and from what I understand it actually works off of sat and cell connections( but i might be wrong about that.) So this is the main screen, but there is also a data screen that shows direction, elevation, climb, and a ton of other things. Also like I said before, you can set way points and take a picture so you can remember what it looks like. Fun tool!! Have a good one everyone

 

[NLXTACY]

Interesting. I saw it on the app store but was skeptical myself. How well does it work outside of cell phone range though?

 

[slowLC]

Well to be honest with you, in southern Oregon you can't get off the beaten path far enough to lose cell coverage from Verizon!(AT&T not so much) someone with some more gps skills can probably weigh in on the type of signal it takes

 

[PAToyota]

Just to add some details for others reading this: Says that it will work with iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad with iOS 4 and later and is $9.99.

I have an iPod Touch that I use the a TomTom cradle with for GPS (the Touch doesn't have built-in GPS functionality). I'll have to give this a try.

For slowLC, the iPhones (except the original IIRC) all have built-in GPS - so you don't actually need cell service to locate - it uses the GPS satellites themselves.

 

[RobRed]

I have purchased every "off road" gps app in the iTunes store including this one, and I'm probably going to sound like a broken record, but for actual navigation Motion X GPS @ $1.99 is the real deal.

GPS Kit is fine but it lacks serious navigation tools.

 

[slowLC]

^^while this might be true, I am by no means a serious gps'er so for my needs it has worked flawlessly so far. I considered spending some cash and get a dedicated gps but decided I wouldn't be able to use something like that to its full potential anyways! I'm still pretty new! Haha

 

[hankinid]

Well to be honest with you, in southern Oregon you can't get off the beaten path far enough to lose cell coverage from Verizon!(AT&T not so much) someone with some more gps skills can probably weigh in on the type of signal it takes

If you yank the sim card it will be without the network.

Steve

 

[RobRed]

^^while this might be true, I am by no means a serious gps'er so for my needs it has worked flawlessly so far. I considered spending some cash and get a dedicated gps but decided I wouldn't be able to use something like that to its full potential anyways! I'm still pretty new! Haha

I wasn't trying to bag on your review, sorry if it came out that way. I should probably compare these in a thread so folks can see the differences.

GPS Kit doesn't have preloaded maps it must cache them, like many of the nav apps. Caching requires a network signal via 3G or Wifi. Once you have cached maps for the areas your traveling to you no longer need a network signal. So while it's true you dont need cell service to locate yourself on GPS you do need cell service (or previously cached maps) to use the mapping.

 

[slowLC]

Not at all! I'm glad you came in because like I said I'm VERY new at this. I understand what your saying though about caching. It worked well for me though.

 

[RobRed]

I see that GPS kit has been updated so I will put it back on my phone and take another look. They also have an ipad version available which is my preferred platform but they want $19.99 for it - ouch.

Last time I had it on my phone was about 9 months ago but according to their site they have added many of the features the MotionX has.

 

[slowLC]

I haven't tried motionx but will have to check it out.