Application Name: AZ-Droid
Description: Records, saves and plots the direction (azimuth)your phone is facing in.
Publisher’s website: None
Cost: Free
Version/date reviewed: v.1.1.0 / 7-6-11
Phone/OS: Droid X / Android 2.3
Android Market (mobile app only)
Android Market (browser)
Point your phone at an object, press a button, and AZ-Droid will record your current GPS location, and the direction the phone is pointing. It will optionally plot that direction as a line in Google Maps, and save it for future use.
Start up the app, and then wait for a GPS fix to be obtained. Once ready, tap either of the Capture buttons to acquire data.
Date, time, azimuth (direction the phone is pointed in), and the latitude/longitude of the phone’s current location is saved.
Select “Map Azimuth”, and your current location is plotted with a dot, with the azimuth direction plotted as a line. You can adjust the length of the line in settings, but even the shortest line spans a very long distance, and you’ll have to zoom out a lot to see the end of it.
If you “Save Azimuth”, the data is stored in a list, accessible with the “Manage Saved Data” menu item. You can select any or all of the saved azimuths, and plot them on a map, with the “Map Selected” menu item.
The color, size and position of the plotted lines and comments can be adjusted in the Settings section.
Other thoughts: There’s no data export option, which is a big drawback; you’ll have to copy the data down by hand. And it would be nice to have the option to set a shorter azimuth line length on screen.
Final thoughts: I can think of a couple of uses for this app. Point it towards an unidentified landmark in the distance, then see on the map plot what the landmark might be. Take azimuths from two different locations, and see where they intersect, to better pin down the location of a distant landmark accurately. But if all you want is to record the direction and current location, Snaptic’s Compass app might be a better choice.