The new version is up. Go get it!
You know the drill -- post feedback here. I want to hear your comments, both good and bad!
Thanks for using Geopher Lite!
Edit: For those of you curious, check the main iPhone settings for skin selection. If there's demand I can move these into the app itself, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. =) Apologies for the confusion.
About Me
- DadGuy
- DadGuy has been working with apple computers since the mac classic. I love games and puzzles and like to solve problems. I'm having a blast developing for the iPhone and iPad.
41 comments:
Is this an update or do I have to purchase again??
Any idea how strong or how many satellites the 3g picks up. I keep loosing signal and/or doesn't update signal too often when in woods looking for caches. I think this has more to do with the phone and not the software??
This is a free update. They always are, for all apps, unless you purchase a new app.
Unfortunately I don't have access to the GPS underpinnings (like which satellites we have, etc) with the iPhone. I just get coordinates, accuracy and distance calculation between apple's points they give me. You're probably right -- the spotty nature is probably because of the iPhone itself.
Wasn't showing up as an update on my iPhone, so I had to wait and download via iTunes.
Thanks for the info. Itunes/Iphone not showing it as an update , asking to buy it again? Will check again Friday?
How do I change the skin?
Also it would be nice to have some type of a timer to know when the last position came in, I walk in circles sometimes looking for caches because it hasn't given a position in a long time. Does the GPS work on the iphone if you are in an area with no cell service?
I found the skins under settings.
I typed the rotate is and went for a little walk, doesn't seem to be working properly, it was just moving a bit, can't really explain what it was even trying to do. For now I will leave it off I think.
I downloaded the new update and now when I tap on it it starts to load and then just goes back out to the homescreen. Please help. It worked earlier today before I got the updates.
It's working great here. I love the new skins. Great job, everyone. I'll try to report more if I get a chance to use it in the field in the next few days.
I know I am going to feel stupid when I find this out - but I can't see where to change the skins ? Where is the settings menu !?!
I also am unable to find the Settings menu. I've clicked on just about everything in there, even double clicked and tripled sometimes. Two fingers, Three fingers and Four with no luck at finding the settings menu. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Other than that it's an awesome app and has made Geocaching a breeze! Can't wait for the next update and the full program!
Wow I feel really dense now. I forgot that you can change the setting for programs under the iPhone menu.
For those of you that are having trouble as I did:
On your iPhone homescreen, go to the button titled Settings. Once the iPhone settings open, scroll all the way to the bottom and click Geopher Lite.
Hope this helps some of you out!
Ah of course !!! I feel stupid now, didnt even think to check there. Thanks !
Finally! Guess what I'm gonna do this weekend :-D
I've left some comments relevant to the previous version (although having updated the app, some still stand for this version) on the iTunes App Store.
I would still like to know if the iphone gps will work if there is now cell service?
Hi..
I downloaded the update this morning and it worked great. I was able to find a cache with no trouble. One suggestion. I used to do cacheing with a Handspring and Magellan receiver. One of the palm programs used to have an application that would allow you to switch to an arrow or pointer that would point to the direction of the cache relative of where you are standing to allow you to hone in on its location when in close proximity. It was not relative to N/S/E/W. Just a directional arrow. This would be a useful tool. With that said, your program works well and I like the new version. It got me within 10' of the cache. Keep up the great work.
I updated to the new version today, since the update, geopher is not working anymore.
When i start up the compass shows up, but when i try to enter a target, the app closes instantly.
plav77
The GPS works with or without a cell phone service (its looking for GPS signals from satellites, not cell towers), however, if you do not have cell service, you will not be able to use the Internet to get to geocaching.com and download caches.
For those who cannot get Geopher Lite to start up, try rebooting your phone. If that doesn't work you can delete the app and re-download it. There are issues with apple's syncing that appear to cause this.
Jack, I've not heard reports of this before. Send me an email (or try the above) and we can work more on this.
Thanks everyone for the feedback!
Hi!
Nice autofill on the N/S E/W and degree. Is it position or downloaded cache page dependent?
I was thinking if the geocaching.com is properly formated it should not be too hard to locate the GPS possition and autograb it or something.
Of course it would be prefered to work against their database directly but when they are not willing to offer an official suport for your app maybe somehow it cold be bypassed. But then again it only takes a minor layout change to spoil the whole autograb idea. :(
Well haven't had time to go caching with the new version as of yet but I'll do it soon and report back.
thanks for this nice app. i am curious what will be next. if there will be a PRO version, i am really considering of buying it.
i would like to bring up some ideas on future changes:
- enable/disable geocaching.com search page via settings. so i can choose to load the search page or if i just want to use the navi function without using data transfer for webpage.
- possibility of choosing if CURRENT or TARGET coords will be used for geocaching.com searchpage.
- i am not sure if this is possible, but entering username/pwd for geocaching.com in geopher settings so there could be an auto login when surfing the website.
- i think you stated once, that you dont want do a moving compass. i found out that on the lower left corner the heading to target is displayed in numbers. would it be possible to label this number with some short text like "to target:" and what about adding a number display for "current heading"? so no moving compass graphic but you get the idea of your moving direction.
- i assume the number in the bottom right corner tells the accuracy of gps. also labeling it in some way..."accuracy:"
- entering target coordinates: thanks for changing the input fields and for not deleting the complete field when doing a change. since at caching you dont change the coords at all...most of the time you just change the last digits.
an idea i just had and dont know about the programming effort and also usability: entering coords via this iphone like "slot-machine" display (eg. time/alarm settings). you can choose, scroll each digit for its own, since sometime its a little bit of fiddling when entering the numbers via the keyboard.
i know this are a lot of ideas, but i want to share and discuss them...maybe one or the other will be in the next version.
thanks again for your efforts! :-)
ps: i really like the "modern" skin.
I'd love to see a way to bookmark the current target coordinates (and pull up a stored bookmark...). THat way I can program in a bunch of caches and wander through them in the order I choose.
I love the app -- thanks! (you stole my idea, dangit... ;-)
Amazing! This is what I was waiting for Geopher to be. All I really needed was the ability to get a good map (Pin Drop). The skins are an awesome bonus. I excluding of caches already found is brilliant! This is an all around great tool now for finding caches on the go. Thank you, thank you, thank. Oh, the autofill is sweet, too. The most annoying part was having to type the N and W in...
I had a weird issue when I downloaded it with my iPhone GUI. The icons were getting moved around in strange fashion... I had to delete and redownload and low it works great!
Jeszu
GPSr: Geopher Lite on iPhone 3G
(That's my geochaching.com forum signature.)
@toughIQ
re: geocaching.com login/pass.
If you've logged into geocaching.com via Safari and selected 'Remember me' then you should be logged automatically in Geopher.
Just bought the app. Am really excited to test it out and at the potential it offers. My family and I are big cachers. We're off on a family trip to Maine and planned on doing some caching while away. I have my Garmin but will bring the iPhone along now too to test it out.
I just downloaded the update and am going out geocaching this afternoon. Playing with it in the house, I am happy about one feature that I hadn't tried before. Techincally I don't think that it is a geopher feature, but I can listen to the iPod (i.e. the podcacher podcast) and run Geopher at the SAME time. WooHooo! Sorry if this had been brought up before. It seems that not all apps allow background iPod playback.
The Lat/Lon field inputs are 1000000% better!!!
Liking it very much! I Can't wait for iPhone 2.1 os update and the benefit that it will provide this app!
I have just been outside trying out the gps of my iPhone out for the very first time, of course using Geopher. But it was a huge disappointment, because my position was only updated once in about 10 meters, which of course makes geocaching absolutely impossible.
Is this normal using an iPhone 3G? Is the iPhone GPS really that bad, because it sounds like some of you have different experiences.
I have been doing a bit of geocaching before using my Nokia N95 8GB and it has no such problems whatsoever. Even the HTC Diamond with its static navigation issues is better than this.
Anyone can tell me if this is normal iPhone 3G/Geopher behavior, or if there's something I can do to tweak my device? Thanks.
Again thanks for writing the program. Me and the kids found 3 cache, only problem is that when switching to feet on geopher it never showed us closer then 20 feet to the cache. all 3 caches we found we were standing on the spot, but was showing us 20-30 feet away?? Maybe more tweeking needs to be done with the conversion to feet?? A log would be great, but otherwise we are enjoying using the program.
The accuracy number at the bottom is the margin of error that is possible with the current coordinates. Unless you are talking about the distance to the cache, that should be fairly accurate -- I've seen mine be about 3 feet before. Hope that helps.
sbc, it may jsut be your GPS lock. Sometimes my iPhone will do that. I have also had the GPS mysteriously stop working, but I rebooted my phone and all is well. Good luck!
It's been mentioned before, and there are a couple of apps that use it but I think you should be using the sun as a way to orient the compass. The sun (unless night caching) will always be a constant and reliable on most days.
For me to guess where north might be is a hassle. Home button out.. google maps.. find north.. home button out.. back in to geopher.
bzzliteyr,
I've looked at doing something like sun compass is doing. However I've chosen to focus my efforts on making the compass itself rotate towards north. Having the sun/moon positions on the compass screen is on my list, but it's not top priority right now. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Hey, so I finally got the update on my phone. :).... I ended up having to delete it and re download it from the app store on my phone. For some reason a bunch of my apps refuse to sync with iTunes.
Anyway I was wondering about the "rotate" thing as I've been typing it but don't seem to be able to turn the compass.
Other than that I like the skins, an option to preview them in settings would be cool I suppose, but that's not really a big deal. As I use it more I may comment again.... And thanks!
I headed out to put the update to the test, and my first experience is an good one. That is if you don't count me inputing the coordinates wrong. heeheehee. I is an idiot. One thing that I sort of wished for was a button that opened the currently viewed geocaching page in safari.
I also obseved te following: when switching from the navigation screen back to the set target screen where I previously had the actual cache page open, it refreshed the page every time. Is there anyway that it could just remember and redraw te html from memory and not actually have to retransmit the data?
I did use the rotate function, and while you feel it isn't ready, I found it more helpful with it than without.
I didn't have my magnetic compass with me, and my human internal compass wasn't calibrated (i.e. I had no clue where north was!) so the rotate function allowed me to head right over to the cache without looking at the map. After switching from the googlemap app and back to geopher lite, it would be nice to have the option to permanent enable the rotate function.
As for the gps accuracy, I was in tree cover and it was staying around +-54ft every now and then it would jump to +-154ft. Only once briefly did I see +-20ft. Even with these numbers I don't perceive any trouble finding a cache. I didn't bring my garmin gpsmap with me to compare, but I find it adequate. I understand this is a iPhone limitation, and not a geopher lite issue. I found the update interval perfect. Even after running the nav for 45 minutes straight I didn't see the battery level drop very much at all.
Keep up the good work! It is definatley worth the $3.99 I paid!
Weird. I tried doing the rotate thing again and nothing happened and then I set my phone down and noticed it turned. When I manually try and move the compass around to line it up with north (with my finger) nothing happens. I thought that's what it was supposed to do... so that you wouldn't have to turn the phone towards north, but instead just turn the dial towards north manually.... but it seems it actually has to do with the way the phone is turned which confuses me... how does it know which way is north? I can't always get it to rotate when I turn the phone... am I using it wrong?
I realize its still not complete, but I was just curious about how it's supposed to work.
congested: when in rotate mode, the arrow will attempt to point to the direction that you need to walk to arrive at the cache.
It only updates every time your position updates, so it works best when walking at a decent pace.
Hope that clears things up.
It does! Thank you!
Just used it for grabbing a few caches, and have several comments:
- Love the rotate feature, since I don't always know which way is North.
- Is the update based on speed? Seems like when I'm driving it updates frequently, but very slowly when I'm walking.
- Really need a Back button in the browser.
- I really appreciate the coordinate prefill help - it makes entering so much easier.
I all, a great update. Thanks!
I just hope the GPS will be updated into something useful in firmware 2.1 or I am getting rid of my iPhone. Don't want to have to drive or run to find caches, that's rediculous.
The bad GPS of the iPhone is really spoiling the fun of Geocaching AND the enjoyment of this very interesting piece of soft.
Oh, and yes! It IS a good idea to move the skin selection to the app itself. With the iPhone lacking multitask functionality, it takes quite some time to check what all the skins look like, having to open and close Settings and Geopher so may times.
Ok,
I think my problems with starting up the app has been caused by another app who has blocked to much memory.
I tried to start other app's to, but every app who need's a little bit memory like maps or photos ended in a crash.
Workaroud: like already written above: restart your iphone and it should work again without problems.
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