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Archive for January, 2011

SailDroid, A Basic Marine-Oriented Position/Direction/Speed Display

Published in compass, distance, GPS and speedometer. 0 Comments

Application Name: SailDroid

Description: Simple marine-oriented GPS display

Publisher’s website: Tiny Garage

Cost: Free

Version/date reviewed: v.1.0  /  1-24-11

Phone/OS: Droid X / Android 2.2

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Android Market (mobile app only)
Android Market (browser)

SailDroid doesn’t offer a lot of functionality, just basic displays of nautical speed, heading, and location. Big advantage of this app is the large size and strong contrast of display (black on white), making it more visible in daylight viewing conditions.

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Figure 1: Choose from speed, compass heading, distance or position.

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Figure 2: Big, easy to read numbers. Default (and only) option for speed is in knots.

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Figure 3: Numerical heading is easy to read, but scale at top is too small and undetailed to be very helpful; a small but full compass display would probably work better.

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Figure 4: For measuring distance, press the button to mark your current location, and it will give you the distance you’ve traveled since marking that location.

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Figure 5: Once again, the coordinate location display is big and easy to read. But no options for decimal degrees, or other coordinate systems.

Other Issues: The app worked fine. I think the mainissue I have is the lack of options for units. A night-time display (red on black) would be nice, as would be the option to display your current location directly in a Google Maps interface.

Final thoughts: A bit more stripped down in functionality than I would like, but if you need a big, readable display, I can’t think of any other GPS app I’ve run across that does better than this one.




AndroGeoid Now “Mobile”-ized

Published in blogkeeping. 1 Comment

This was pretty dumb on my part: until yesterday, this site was virtually unreadable on most Android devices, thanks to poor formatting choices and my WordPress setup. That’s now been rectified, and the new mobile version should now be fully usable on any Android unit; portrait or landscape for units with 800 x 480 or higher res screens, landscape better for lower-res screens.

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Figure 1: Visiting the site with a mobile device, it will default to the new mobile view; if you really want to go back to the web version, there’s a button at the bottom of every screen that lets you do that. Most recent posts will be listed at the top; tapping on any title will take you to that post.

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Figure 2: I’ve gone through every post to make sure that the graphics images will fit in a 480-wide screen, perfect for use in Portrait mode. Unfortunately, this meant removing some of the formatting that made them look better on a computer screen. But they’re not bad now, the posts are still perfectly readable in any computer’s browser (or as perfectly readable as they’ve ever been).

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Figure 3: Tapping on the dropdown arrow at upper-right brings up menus to take you back to the home page, subscribe to the RSS feed, or email me directly.

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Figure 4: Tapping on the Categories tab at the top brings up a list of category tabs; tap on any of them to bring up a list of posts related to that category.

AFAIK, it should work fine on any Android phone, and even (*shudder*) on other smartphone platforms like iOS, Blackberry and WebOS. Feel free to check it out on your smartphone, and if you run into any problems with display or use, please drop me a line.




RunKeeper Pro: Sports/Recreational Fitness GPS Tracker Now Free

Published in fitness, GPS, social and sports. 1 Comment

Application Name: RunKeeper Pro

Description: Sports/recreational fitness distance/pace/calorie tracker.

Publisher’s website: RunKeeper

Cost: Now completely free (used to be $9.99)

Version/date reviewed: v.2.6.1.0  /  1-23-11

Phone/OS: Droid X / Android 2.2

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Android Market link (mobile app only)

Android Market link (browser)

RunKeeper Pro tracks your individual and cumulative exercise sessions, recording your pace, distance traveled and calories burned.

 

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Figure 1: Start by entering the input type for your location. GPS is for normal outdoor activities, while Manual Entry is for indoor activities, or those where you’re static (e.g. weightlifting). Activity Type includes the standards (hiking, cycling, running, cross-country skiing, etc.). Coaching lets you set pacing, warm-up cool-down times, repetitions, etc.. When you’re ready to start, press the Start button …

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Figure 2: RunKeeper tracks your pace or speed (user-selectable), the amount of time you’ve been active, calories burned (a rough estimate, since it depends on your weight/metabolism), and total distance traveled. It also plots your pace/speed every minute as a scrollable bar graph, with the most recent point highlighted in blue.

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Figure 3: Tap on the tab at the lower left, and get your activity route plotted in Google Maps, with markers every mile/km. Only the Maps view is displayed here, no options for aerial imagery or terrain. The arrow takes you back to the main screen.

The “cross”-like symbol to the left of time switches the display from portrait to landscape and back; rotating the phone has no effect on the display.

You can set the unit to give you voice output cues for time, distance and pace, at user-defined intervals. It’s not the built-in Google text-to-speech library, but a higher-quality digitized voice. The settings section also lets you configure units, what you see on your main display, and whether to share your activity data with others (RunKeeper website, Facebook, Twitter).

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Figure 4: Once you’re done with the activity, a voice summary is given, and you have the option of saving the data with a note, or discarding it.

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Figure 5: All your activities will be accessible from the list; tapping on an item brings up the summary, bar graph, and access to a map.

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Figure 6: If you register with the RunKeeper website (free, and optional), your activity data will be uploaded to your account on that website as well. You can keep it private, share it with a few people, or share it with lots more using Facebook or Twitter. The data page for that activity includes more options/info than in the app, including elevation plots and aerial/terrain options in Google Maps. The site can also email you alerts when set personal bests in an activity for distance.

Other Issues: App worked very smoothly. Always remember to exit out of the program when you’re done, as GPS can really drain the battery quite quickly, and it keeps running even if you shut off the screen.

Final thoughts: Clean, simple interface, very easy to use and understand. Not sure that it’s worth $9.99, but definitely worth grabbing at the current price of free, and worth considering even at the higher price. Now completely free forever, and worth considering in any case if you’re serious about your training regimen.