Flutterby™! : Playing with GPS Log 2009-05-18 20:07:43.851731+00

Playing with GPS Log

2009-05-18 20:07:43.851731+00 by Dan Lyke 3 comments

GPS Log v1.3 hit the iTunes app server today, so when I took a walk down to Aqus Cafe to clear my head I played with it a bit, and then hit the "upload" button, resulting in this. I need to play with the display a little bit, and probably break out the KML below the map as body text. It's not, for instance, obvious that the pushpins have data attached to them.

Here's the KMZ directly in Google Maps, and a direct link to the KMZ for Google Earth or what-have-you.

Are the waypoints in your walking path already known locations (storefronts, etc.) stored by Google?

No. There are tools which turn the iPhone into a more full-fledged GPS tracking device. GPS Log saves your battery by only recording a location when you tell it to, and it then lets you put in various meta information about that location, including attaching pictures to it.

So in each of those situations I tapped the "GPS Log" application to bring it up, I have it set to go into "new location" and "take a picture" on startup, so I take a picture, tap in a title for the location, maybe add another picture or two or a description, and hit save.

For things like hikes and even bike rides a full track might be interesting but the iPhone doesn't have battery power for that, and I think for the most part what I really want is a quick and dirty way to mark intersections and things of interesting on my meanderings. Heck, I could even just use a "snap to the closest marker" for geocoding pictures from the real camera later. Or carry another GPS logger, but use the metadata created by GPS Log as my annotation tool, ways to trim to start and stop points, that sort of thing.

Oh, yeah: The thing that makes v1.3 so cool is the upload button by default goes to a site on the author's server, but is configurable and easy to figure out what's going on, so I've hijacked it to write the page I linked to automatically.