JustMike

About a year ago I did some testing with a very wimpy Android phone and found that GeOrg could handle the largest GPX files. GeoBeagle/GeoHunter were fairly good. The other 5-ish choices were poor in this respect. I've not re-tested to see if any of these applications have changed. Regards, JustMike

- My experience with the Groundspeak app is positive. Works as expected and is worth $10. It's a one-time cost. - c:geo (can we say that now?) is the only app that I know of that causes Groundspeak to get upset. I've not used it recently, but it worked great the last time I used it. It's free. - There are quite a few very good apps that process gpx (pocket query) files. I prefer GeOrg, but GeoBeage, GeoHunter, CacheMate and a few others work nicely and are quite popular. Some are free, some are not. All are under $10. I've used all these apps on a Droid (and now on an LG Allay since my Droid died) on Verizon. They should work on any Android device.

Go to settings and put in your user/pass info and when it searches you'll see only the ones that you haven't found. The app is quite less than expected (by me at least). No help. No FAQ. No screenshots. Nothing. Pointers go to the forum that doesn't really permit open discussion (it's more of a ranking system request site). Pretty disappointed in my initial use vs. at least one free (C:GEO) alternative, which seems to have usability much more figured out. I wish it was only that easy. I must have a serious lack of eye sight; when the app loads up it gives me 4 things (Find Nearby Geocaches, Search by Location, Search by Code, and Trackables) Absolutely no settings. Are you meaning setting somewhere outside the app? Help... So where is this settings area? I looked in the phone's setting but there isn't anything there for logging into GC.com This whole thing is becoming quite lame. The app doesn't have any settings tabs unless they're hidden, it doesn't have a simple instruction set or anything else. I thought GPS's were meant to keep you from egtting lost; GC has efficiently erased that advantage down to nothingness... A very common way for any Android app to be configured is to press the menu button while the app is running. Same for the GC app. Fire up the GC app, press menu, first item you'll see is 'username' and 'password.' Easy peasy. Enjoy!

Go to settings and put in your user/pass info and when it searches you'll see only the ones that you haven't found. The app is quite less than expected (by me at least). No help. No FAQ. No screenshots. Nothing. Pointers go to the forum that doesn't really permit open discussion (it's more of a ranking system request site). Pretty disappointed in my initial use vs. at least one free (C:GEO) alternative, which seems to have usability much more figured out. I wish it was only that easy. I must have a serious lack of eye sight; when the app loads up it gives me 4 things (Find Nearby Geocaches, Search by Location, Search by Code, and Trackables) Absolutely no settings. Are you meaning setting somewhere outside the app? Help... Press the menu key.

Dig 'em. Washington History Challenge was my all-time favorite. Fun with friends, climbing mountains in the dark, purchasing a kayak (after sinking in a borrowed blow up), cliffs at night, sand dunes filled with rednecks in dune buggies..... man, it just don't get much better! Have done: Washington HIstory, Washington Counties, King County Thomas Brothers, Alphabet Soup, 100 Star, 200, star, and a few others. Working on Fizzy (6 left), Washington DeLorme (5 left) and a few others.

You don't actually believe that, do you? You actually think that most people who comment about non-Groundspeak products are phonies promoting their own product or agendas? Really? You're sounding just a wee bit paranoid. I can assure you I'm real and have no agenda other than enjoying geocaching using whatever tools work best. I'm not connected with any competing product/service and derive zero income from geocaching. I do, however, send money to Groundspeak. I've had many email conversations with many of the very people you are maligning and none appeared to be phony. All seemed to be people just trying to enjoy geocaching. Really, I think an apology is in order.

Uh..... the link you provided is for the official Groundspeak geocaching app. Works nicely, although it's still a little buggy. Worth $10. There are several great apps for the Android that manage gpx files. GeOrg, GeoHunter, CacheMate, GeoBeagle, etc, etc. etc. For these, you'll need to use pocket queries to be useful, which is a premium member service. Actually, now that I think about it, you must need to be a premium member to use Groundspeak's geocaching app too. Regardless..... premium membership is a good value too. An important point, that you may not realize since you're new to geocaching and perhaps new to using a smart phone, a geocaching app that depends on cell service, like the unnamed app and Groundspeak's app, will not work without cell service unless you download cache data before loosing service. Groundspeak doesn't allow us to discuss the un-named app in their forums. Feel free to send me a private note if you'd like feedback. Regards, Mike

Why do I need Gsak? I'm loading my PQ GPX files into Georg and updating them regularly without it. Please explain. Here you go ... In the example I described, I was using multiple PQs, about 30 in this case, to download all of the cache data for a large region. I then merged that data using GSAK and then selected a smaller area to load into GeOrg. Granted you could simply take all of the cache data from all those PQs and load it directly into GeOrg (I did basically that to stress test GeOrg and other Android apps), but by first placing all that data into Gsak I can do various searches -- for various state-wide challenges, for example -- and load a smaller data set into GeOrg. So, no, you do not need Gsak to load 30 PQs into GeOrg. To make use of all the cache data for a large region I think you do need Gsak or something like it.

Why must Groundspeak be the one to give you an alternative to an app that violates their TOU by scraping their site? There are several free apps already available that respect Groundspeak's TOU. Many find them very useful. The unauthorized application is hardly the only option. What I meant was that Groundspeak has not provided me with THEIR alternative (as of yet, and now the site says "Q3"--great another 3 months). From what I've used, none of the "several free apps" are even remotely as convenient to use as what I'm doing now. All of which require me to extensively plan exactly where I'll be in advance, download queries, and sometimes mess around with multiple apps to get things loaded and displaying correctly. As someone who is all over town, at random, occasionally I get 10 minutes to spare and it's REALLY nice to be able to pull into a parking lot, grab the Droid, click a button and pull up "caches near me right now", pick one, and go. I would probably stop geocaching altogether, or at least it would seriously impact the "pleasure versus hassle" ratio from my point of view, to have to mess around with GPXs and downloads every time I wanted to pull up a quick cache in the neighborhood. Totally removes spontaneity from the whole game. I hardly think I'm alone in this opinion...am I? As a test, I tried loading 15,000 caches into several of the Android gpx-processing apps. My thinking was that any app that could manage 15,000 caches would allow basically the same behavior as the live-search apps without the various problems with live search (like lack of cell coverage and heartburn from our friends in Seattle). I found that most apps fail badly with large gpx sets, but GeOrg handled 16,000 without too much pain on a Droid and easily handled several gpx sets of 5000. GeOrg can not only process large data sets, but allows search and sort on large data sets and allows full navigation to any of those caches. So, I'm able to load all the caches in the state of Washington into my Droid and easily do a "what's nearby" search. How's that for 'around town?' Granted to make this work, you need to have a planned PQ schedule and manage the results with a tool like Gsak. But there are many others doing this -- I certainly didn't think it up -- and it provides some other useful planning advantages, especially if you like to do state-wide challenges. The housekeeping takes about 10 minutes a couple times each week, which is acceptable to me as I can do that housekeeping while doing other computer tasks (like writing forum posts). If you like to just grab whatever cache happens to be nearby then live search is the way to go. But you'll be missing most of what makes geocaching fun.

You can download cache data without being a PM and, using a PC tool like GSAK (very cool, it's even free to try) you can create GPX files. Those GPX files can then loaded into GeoBeagle/etc. You basically create a GPX file rather than downloading it via a PQ. Works great. No PM/PQ/Bcache required.

Why must Groundspeak be the one to give you an alternative to an app that violates their TOU by scraping their site? There are several free apps already available that respect Groundspeak's TOU. Many find them very useful. The unauthorized application is hardly the only option. Choice is good. Well, choice is good for consumers and bad for providers. Some consumers/geocachers like to do live searches. Some prefer to use PQs. Choice. For those that like to depend on live searches one of the apps that Groundspeak feels violates the TOU are a possible choice. For those that prefer to use PQs there are more choices, none (I think) cause any tummy troubles for the Frog in Seattle. Personally, I prefer to use PQs. Rarely do I ever just randomly show up at a location at start caching. Instead, I plan trips with a focus on a specific location or specific caches. It's nice that my preferred caching style allows me to avoid live searches -- since that bothers Groundspeak and because I frequently cache where there is no cell coverage -- but I do this because it's the way I like to cache. Really, this is a silly issue. Pick the app you like and go caching! Get outside. Get some dirt on your shoes. Have fun!

Hey Groundspeak, The Geocaching Software page does not list the handful of Android applications that, I believe, meet the Groundspeak TOS. Should that page be updated? I believe the following apps are 'legal' so should be listed: GeoBeagle, GeoHunter, GeOrg, OpenGPX and Gooh. There must be a few that I'm overlooking too. Might be useful to geocachers to list some of the other related apps too. GPS Satus, Compass, GPS Averaging, GPS Essentials, My Tracks and WhereYouGo. There have been requests to have such a list so people know what's acceptable to Groundspeak and what is not. This would be a useful way to provide such a list. Thanks.

Yeah...... I do, sincerely, have great respect for you, Robert, and appreciate and respect the people of Groundspeak. Honest. Good people, earning a reasonable income from our little game/sport. Cool. Thumbs up. My problem is that geocaching is more than just Groundspeak. It's us, the million plus people that make it all happen. So, when Groundspeak behaves in a way that fails to recognize that geocaching is 'owned' by us too I'm offended. I have asked respectfully that Groundspeak develop a public API for mobile apps. I will continue to do so. The API can be designed in such a way that it protects their, very reasonable, business model and allows cachers to make use of the new mobile technology. The failure to create a public API creates a situation where apps like the one that causes problems are widely used. Please.... will someone at Grounspeak pay attention! This problem is not going to go away by forbidding a single app.

NOT!!! I was hoping so too. End of 2nd quarter and come and gone. Latest official word is 3-4 more weeks.

My favorite is GeOrg as it handles large gpx files, support search and sort and has a nice collection of features. Helps that it doesn't seem to bother Groundspeak. I like GeoBeagle and GeoHunter, but neither supports search and sort. CacheMate is nice, supporting search and sort, but lacks some of the other features of GeoBeagle/GeoHunter. [Reference to unauthorized application removed by moderator] The Groundspeak geocaching app will be out 'soon' too, we're told.

There are a number of good Android apps for geocaching. Search for geocaching in the android market. A few I like: GeoBeagle and GeoHunter are both free and based on same code. GeOrg is not free, but has features I find worth the $7 cost. CacheMate. A few others that I've not used much: Geooh, OpenGPX and Columbus. There's also the app that we're not allowed to discuss and endorse on Groundspeak forums. The Groundspeak app should be out soon. Lots of great choices.

I recently tried loading very large data sets into several geocaching apps. GeoBeagle and GeoHunter were usable with 6000. CacheMate was usable to about 2000. GeOrg was the best with large data set. It could manage 16000. GoOrg also handles multiple data sets nicely and can to search and sort. Regards, Mike

Please try the latest version of GeoBeagle with bcaching.com; it's not live queries, but I think it's pretty convenient.... Steve GeoBeagle is a nice app. Thanks for developing it and sharing it. Not sure if I find bcaching useful or not. Can't quite decide. It's a Groundspeak-acceptable way to do semi-live searches, but..... like any live search it requires network connectivity. That can be limiting if you like to cache in remote locations. Also, to easily use bcaching one needs to limit PQs to 500 rather than taking advantage of the new 1000 PQ limit. I'm currently a fan of placing large cache databases (a few thousand caches, at least) on my Droid and avoiding live searches. This has a number of advantages. It doesn't annoy Groundspeak. It works around Groundspeak's lack of a public API. It works in remote areas where cell coverage is poor. And, given that I already manage a large geocache database with a pile of PQs and GSAK it's easy to dump a lot of data to the Droid and use one of the many good Android geocaching apps. GeOrg seems to handle this best since it has search and sort functions, but GeoBeagle works nicely too. Different folks like different approaches. Just one guy's observations.

I gave WhereYouGo a spin over the weekend too. Worked fine. No software problems, in any case. At the risk of turning this into a discussion about Wherigo caches and getting told by the moderators to move it to yet another forum, it appears that Wherigo cache creators need to be more flexible on zone definition as GPSr are just not that accurate. I found myself wandering back 'n forth over a small area waiting for the software/hardware to decide I was within a zone. Expecting a GPSr to provide accurate location information within a yard or two is silly. Create zones that are 30' in diameter at a minimum. They are 'zones,' after all. Regards, mike

A moderator asked that I move this topic to this forum rather than the iPhone forum. Apologies to those that note the duplication. I have created a Facebook group, Geocaching with Android If you play Facebook games come join the group. Regards, JustMike

See "Geocaching with Android" on Facebook if interested.

I'm aware of the fact the folder is missing but there is something structural developers have to deal with. The Archos 5H is the only non-mobile phone device using Android. But it has a lot of potential. I also had some apps that needed an IMEI number but the Archos doesn't have any mobile phone capabilities. The developers aim for the larger part of the market but don't take care of other applications for the Android OS. Over time this will be a great loss for a nice platform. The new Google TV is reportedly using Android so there could be many future Android platforms that are not mobile phones. But I rather doubt anyone will use a Google TV to geocache. Confession: I had to google Archos 5H to figure out that it's a tablet device. Looks like there's a file manger on this device. Can you create /sdcard directory with that file manager?

I'm a beta testier for the Groundspeak app and am aware of the current testing/development status. I'm not looking for a forum in which we can discuss a single app, Rather, I'm proposing a forum in which geocaching with Android devices can be discussed. There's a forum for ham radio with geocaching.... how many ham radio operators are there compared to Android users?

I would imagine that will happen AFTER they release an app for the Android based devices.... There's a hamster caching forum and I've not noticed Groundspeak selling hamsters.