ArchtMig

This is EXACTLY what I've been asking/wishing/hoping for on the geocaching with iPhone forums. A case for the iPhone that has additional battery capacity, plus a dedicated GPS receiver that takes over from the iPhone internal GPS receiver, plus an external GPS antenna. Basically, everything on a dedicated handheld GPSr but using the iPhone touch screen interface. Why the additional GPS receiver? Because the one in the iPhone SUCKS for geocaching, that's why! It's OK when seeking in-town hides and you're looking at the aerial photograph and you can pick out a few landmarks and take yourself to the cache by recognizing where you are on the aerial photo. But out in the boonies where there are no recognizable features, aerial photos don't help at all, and then you have to rely on the accuracy of the GPS alone. And the iPhone's GPS is neither super accurate nor does it update your location quickly. The iPhone will show that you are 50 feet away from the cache and 30 seconds later, the little blue dot will still show you as being 50 feet away. Even if you've walked 50 feet closer. The iPhone can NOT update your location as fast as you can walk and often, you find yourself nowhere near the cache, or even having overshot it and then you have to backtrack. Often, you are reduced to just standing there for minutes at a time waiting for the iPhone to update your location so you can see where you are in relation to the cache. Plus, using the GPS on the iPhone and especially while geocaching sucks the battery dry on the iPhone very quickly. I even have an external battery but it plugs into the bottom of the iPhone and the connection is very tenuous when the two are joined. I rigged a backboard device to hold both the battery plus the iPhone securely in place together. That works pretty good, I used it yesterday for a full day of geocaching in fact, but it's a clunky, inelegant solution at best. Having this case with its additional battery capacity is great. It's just like a mophie juicebox case. But the REAL advantage in the iPhone is its touch screen user interface. Hands down, the BEST way to interact with a device. I've been in the market for a standalone GPS for awhile, but now that I'm spoiled by using the iPhone, I just can't get used to the clunky stupidity of a toggle interface like on the Garmin GPS 60CSX, and I'm having trouble wrapping my head around shelling out 400 or 500 bucks for something like a Garmin Oregon, where the maps aren't nearly as nice looking as the iPhone's Google maps, and the interface isn't quite as elegant as an iPhone's, anyway. So what I wished for was something that was the hardware guts of a standalone GPS, plus extra battery, but without the display or OS because it would use the iPhone for that. This seems to fit that bill. All that being said, am I going to go right out and get one of these? I don't know yet. The new iPhone 4 is coming out and with it's new perimeter antenna array and faster processor, etc., it might be a game changer. It will be interesting to see what posters here on the geocaching with iPhone forums have to say after they've gotten the iPhone 4 and taken it out geocaching. Hopefully, it will perform much better than the current iPhone models do, and if it does, I'll be getting an iPhone 4 as soon as I'm eligible to upgrade, anyway. But if geocaching with iPhone 4 is still as frustrating as with the current iPhones, I will seriously consider trying out this GPS case.