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I'm one of the developers on Geode. The video is of Geode running in the iPhone Simulator that ships with the official iPhone SDK. We know it's taking forever to get this out there. We're a small shop doing this in our spare time, and we all have pretty demanding full time day jobs. I've been stepping up the amount of hours I've been putting into Geode lately to try and get it out on the App Store sometime soon for everyone that's been waiting. There's a few new screenshots on our latest blog post: http://www.nonameindustries.com/?p=73.

Hi everyone...Matt here from NNI. Sorry for the lack of responses lately....everyone at NNI has been pretty busy with their day jobs and we have all been traveling a lot lately. I've been preparing to spend the next 2.5 months in Germany starting on Saturday, Zach has been up in Canada for the past couple weeks, and Rich has been traveling all over the continental US. Our travel schedules all collided and we haven't been able to dedicate much time to Geode the past two weeks, but I assure you it's still in development and things are settling down now to the point where we can get back to focusing on Geode. We are working on knocking out the one piece that's been keeping us from releasing betas to groups of testers and that's the sync applications. We need an easier way to get gpx files on to the device before it's useful to anyone, and we are focusing most of our time on that. Again - sorry for the silence. If you ever want a quick development update, feel free to shoot me an email directly to matthew.breedlove@nonameindustries.com and I'll get back to you as quick as I can.

With iPhone apps, the updates seem to be free, so if you assume that the app will improve over time, it's not outrageously expensive, plus the market for a geocaching app is MUCH smaller than, let's say for example, a video game app, so you have to factor that in. I think I will probably end up writing my own, since anything anyone else writes won't do everything I want it to do. --Marky Marky, I've been working on an app similar to this but more fully featured, and if you have any feedback that'll help make it more usable and more what you are looking for, I'd love to incorporate it. We've got a page with the features we have in development up at www.geodeapp.com, as well as a demo video. We are currently working on two versions - one 'Geode Companion' version that'll leave out the maps and compass and work for paperless caching (even on the iPod Touch), and a full featured version with all the features described on the site. Let me know what you think. The price range we are shooting for will be somewhere in the $5 to $8 range. --matt

Thanks for the compliment! The cache list will be synced over WiFi via an application on the PC or Mac. Right now the syncing will just sync a folder of GPX / LOC files with the device, although we will investigate a multiple database concept in the future. Notes and Photo support will be added to the cache detail screen to allow association of these to each cache, as well as logging Found / DNF. During sync this information will make it back to the computer in a nice format to make it easy to go update the website. iPod Touch support is the most common question we get, and yes, it will be supported. Obviously GPS will not function, but it will still be able to search, browse, and log cache details and sync back to your computer via WiFi.

Just a quick update - we've got a demonstration video up with our progress so far in Geode if anyone is interested. Head on over to the blog post and check it out. We will be updating our twitter account with future development updates and demonstrations when they become available. Please feel free to leave comments with any questions or suggestions you may have.

While the cost per month varies based on your rate plan, it's pretty in line with other smart phone offerings that include an unlimited data plan. I am currently in the process of programming a full featured geocaching application for the iPhone, and it does have features that'll enable use when out of range of cell service. We've got a site up with a list of features and some screenshots, so take a look and let me know what you think. www.geodeapp.com

You might like the application I've been working on for the iPhone. It'll sync all the cache information from a GPX file so you can browse it without an internet connection, view hints, logs, etc. It'll also let you cache maps for offline usage if you are out of cell service range. Give it a look, give us some feedback on features you think might be useful. www.geodeapp.com

I think you'll like what we've got planned for Geode. Aside from syncing pocket queries to the device with a computer, it has a section dedicated to manually entered caches. Entering these caches will allow you to browse the web, find coordinates, and store the cache(s) and interact with them like you would any other cache on the device. You can set it as a target, then use the embedded maps or launch the Google Maps application, use the compass, log notes and photos with the cache, and then sync them back to the computer later if you choose. Personally I prefer the map we are implementing inside the app. Once it's finished it'll rotate the map view to match your movements.

I haven't actually tested it out yet, but when you are traveling in a car you get very frequent timestamped updates on the GPS info, and while the accuracy may be +/- 10 feet for each reading, the readings pretty linear along your vector (not jumping left 10 feet for one reading, right 10 feet for another). Just based on the data I've seen from the GPS thus far I'm fairly confident that the error range in the calculation won't be too great. Only time will tell, but it'll be easy enough to build in the hooks to display speed using my method and swap it out to use the SDK method when 2.1 hits.

I have seen the notes on the 2.1 SDK features. I can do the speed and direction stuff as it stands right now using (relatively) simple calculations based on previous location and current location to get an azimuth of your vector and then calculate speed based on distance traveled over time. The SDK will make doing these calculations more 'standard' so individual developers won't have to implement the functions themselves, so I'm looking forward to that. The distance and heading information will likely make it on to the map, compass, and rotated dashboard screens in an overlay that you can turn on and off. As you noted - a major feature I wanted was the caching of map tiles and the importing of GPX data. Both of these are high on my development list.

The main cache listing screen has a special section for manually entered caches that have been entered. While I have the same restrictions as Geopher about interacting with Geocaching.com (can't directly pull data), I will be adding the ability to launch a browser inside the application to a URL of your choosing (with the option to pass your current location as part of the URL). I'm envisioning a bookmark interface to make managing this easy. This will allow the user to hit the Geocaching.com nearby listing page (or any other page that takes coordinates as part of the querystring). The browser will have a coordinate entry panel that'll let you enter whatever coordinates you find and store them as a manually entered cache. I'm researching options for automatic coordinate recognition on any page that you happen to be browsing on, so this might smooth out the process. I did send an email to Groundspeak regarding if they offered any kind of license to interact with their data, but sadly never got a response. I'm hoping to have a beta release in 2 to 3 weeks. It's a hefty feature list that I'm implementing, including the need to create both Mac and PC desktop applications to allow for GPX/LOC syncing. If you are interested in helping me beta test, please leave a comment over on one of the www.nonameindustries.com posts so I can start a list.

I just thought I'd chime in on this thread and let everyone know I've been working on a Geocaching application for the iPhone called Geode. There's a feature list and some screenshots available on the website over at www.geodeapp.com. I'd love to get some feedback on the features I'm working on.