I'm new to geocaching (actually, I've been fascinated with the sport since it originated, but haven't owned a GPS of my own until now, so couldn't really do it), and after getting an iPhone 3G, gave it a shot today. Here are my impressions...
I hit 5 caches, found them all, all urban/suburban, with one being a multi ending 3 miles up the canyon out of town. So most were within 3G or EDGE range, with only one being in a "no service" area.
My technique was to look on the website to find caches I wanted. Then I entered the coordinates into Map's search field, using the format "40 00.000,-105 00.000", and pinned them. Then I bookmarked the pin with the name and code of the cache.
For the one I suspected of being out of service, I actually took a few screenshots of the Map program's views. Map's satellite view is probably one of the best parts of the iPhone/Geocaching combination. I actually found one cache because I could actually see the individual bush it was hidden under! Note, to take a screenshot on the 3G, press and hold the home button, and then tap the "lock" button on top. The screen will flash white, and you'll have a screenshot saved to the "photos" app. I took several zoom level screenshots before leaving the in service area.
In general, everything went well. The out of service area cache was tricky, but my screenshots were very helpful, and the GPS still positioned me, just with no downloaded maps. Not having a "distance" or heading was annoying, but honestly, not a big deal for these "on the beaten path" caches.
All in all, I had a great time with my iPhone today. I found all the caches I had set out to find (nearly gave up on two, but stuck with it, and found them). The phone gave me all the info I needed. I only used a single scrap of paper to write down a few coords, because of the lack of copy/paste. No printouts necessary. I had a cup of coffee at a coffee shop after I was done, and sat leisurely browsing the geocaching website on 3G, updating my day's progress, filling out my log entries, tracking my trackables, etc.
So anyway, for urban/suburban caching, the iPhone was great. 3G meant browsing the site and updating logs, checking hints, etc, was seamless and pleasant. Maps isn't very sophisticated, but the satellite imagery was a huge help (if you have cell service), and the pins/bookmarks were handy and simple to use. Maps automatically interprets a number of coords formats, so it was quick to type in coords as given by the website by default.
If someone were to make a geocaching program, here are some things I would love for it to have, and would probably pay for (and that, based on my limited knowledge of the iphone SDK and terms and conditions, would be theoretically possible).
1. Automatically fetching the details of a cache. Type in the cache code, and it downloads and saves to the iPhone the coords, description, hints, and first x logs.
2. Clicking on the coords would take you to those coords in the Maps program.
3. If possible, perhaps it could automatically grab screenshots of a few zoom levels of satellite imagery for that location and save them within the program (may be banned by the SDK terms).
4. Add notes to the cache entry from within the program. After finding, submit a log entry from the program itself (after coming back into service, of course).
5. Show heading and distance to currently tracking cache. This would be handy for out of service areas. Saving a few intermediary waypoints would be very nice as well.
6. Allow you to take a photograph from within the application (or even pick one from the photo roll), and associate with the cache, for automatic uploading along with your log entry.
Thats about all for my little wishlist. Hopefully that helps, even if it is just a little information from a newbie cacher.
-Sam
