On 7/21/10 4:36 PM, Califbill wrote:


"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.


Yup...I'll take your word on their history and technology. The phone GPS
does just about the same thing as the stand-alone Garmin NUVI gps
devices and probably the Tom-Toms, too. Gives you an on-screen
"printout" of where you want to go, shows a moving map, voices out turn
by turn directions. Other apps use the locater to display restaurant,
train stations, gas stations, whatever....the whole megillah.

My Dinc phone is pretty nifty, and certainly the equivalent in features
as the apple iphone, as far as I can tell. There are lots of Android
phones out there from which to choose, too. Some have slightly different
feature sets.