"Harry " wrote in message
...
On 7/21/10 12:58 PM, Frogwatch wrote:
On Jul 21, 12:49 pm, Harry wrote:
On 7/21/10 12:38 PM, Frogwatch wrote:

So, I’d like to see a simple GPS with a built in needle type no
battery hand compass. It would also have a straight edge with a scale
and even a protractor for measuring angles.

There are at least a dozen compass apps for Android cell phones, plus
some that seemingly incorporate GPS, too. My Android phone happens to
have GPS. I use the phone a lot, running any number of apps, and i
usually get two full days out of it before the battery runs down to 20%.

You're on your own for the straight edge and protractor.

My son has an Android and he turned the compass app on. I held it
near a steel object and I was amazed that it deflected as a magnetic
compass would. The built in compass is NOT GPS based but seems to have
a solid state flux gate sensor that responds to the earths mag field.
I am very impressed by the Android.


I didn't say "the" compass was a GPS. I said there were some compass apps
that incorporated GPS. That presumes one's Android phone has a GPS. Mine
does. But I've never bothered with a compass app. It's a pretty neat
phone...there supposedly are 100,000 apps already. I only have a handful
of apps.

BTW, there's a marine nav package out now for the Android phones. Pretty
good one, or so it has been described.

GPS was required by the government. So 911 would have a much better fix on
your location. The flux gate compass was added for some apps. Was cheap
addition as well as the crude GPS silicon. I worked on one of the first
apps for GPS and compass in a phone in 2001. Customer was going for a group
that would use the phone as a search device. Point the phone in the
direction you wanted info for and ask for history, dining, etc. This was
when I was with the major supplier of silicon to the cell phone industry.
Was fun as we had the first GPS in a phone chip set, etc.