PercyKittenz

Wow, that looks fantastic, sirmalloc! I really like the design you've got. The compass and cache details view look great. I like the integration for choosing a cache and the idea of having the map rotate with your direction. Best of luck in getting all of those features working. Do you have an estimate of how long until your first release? I'm also wondering if the app will interact with geocaching.com in any way? For example, will you be able to see a list of caches near your current location, as with Geopher? Will you be limited to only caches that you load onto the device manually? I'd be less inclined to use the app if it requires that I sync it with a computer before going out. Even with the list of caches that have to be loaded on the phone, will you be able to sort them by distance in the list view? Without the ability to locate nearby caches and track them without syncing, I may find this app less useful than Geopher, but I love the way it looks and hope that I have a reason to have it on my iPhone. It certainly seems like even without the features mentioned above, this app is going to be a must-have for those who want to use their iPod Touch or first gen iPhone for paperless caching.

Geopher does all of those thing, and it allows you to log into Geocaching.com as well. After you launch the app and press Set Target, and it opens the list of search results, click the login button on the top right corner of the screen, right where it always is on Geocaching.com. Be sure to check Remember Me or else you'll have to log in every time you launch the app. Then you can do the search again and get the coordinates, hint and log. I've used the app while caching twice, both times successfully, and it has allowed me to find caches easier and faster while out and about than I could have with a regular GPS, simply because I have access to the entire Geocaching.com website. That being said, this is a very rough 1.0 version made just to get something on the app store, and the next few versions should add a lot of needed polish and missing features, including compass rotation, coordinate saving between sessions, and a link to open a Google Maps view from the tracking page. Those are all things that should be coming soon, so keep watching for updated apps on the store.

Well, that isn't really the way it is. It's more like the developer of Geopher is selling a more complete fishing pole than the one I give out. Everyone who comes to the lake is still following by the rules and it doesn't deplete the pool any more to have people with better tools. Nobody is selling the fish, everyone still gets a fish just the same as if they used other tools. Groundspeak makes money by having people pay for access to the site and through a number of other promotions and products. Geopher is only another way of bringing them to the site, and it doesn't take anything that they couldn't already get with another tool.

Woah, woah, let's slow down and get some things straight here... This thread is about the issue between Groundspeak and the developer of Geopher Lite for the iPhone, not about Groundspeak and Apple or anything to do with the iPhone technically. Despite David Pogue's article, the iPhone is more than capable of providing turn-by-turn GPS directions, which a number of companies have already said they're working on adding, and works perfectly fine as a Geocaching tool to boot. Whether Groundspeak/Trimble releases their own tool for the iPhone is something we'll have to wait and see about. The main point of this thread is that after Geopher Lite was released on the App store, the developer of Geopher Lite found out from Groundspeak that, despite his best attempts to avoid violating the ToS by intentionally NOT scraping from Geocaching.com, they deemed his software to be in violation and requested that it be removed. Since then, there's been some reconciliation and Groundspeak has said that as long as it does not violate the ToS by interacting with the site, the app can continue to be sold. This means that, for the time being, many of the planned features, like grabbing the coordinates from the page, will not happen. This leaves a number of questions: Would the app still be restricted if the developer had decided not to charge for it? Maybe, but that's an issue that he has to work out. I think he deserves to be paid for what the app already provides. Should Groundspeak be able to make money from this? Yes, they have the right to sell your data as stated in the ToS. So is it "stealing" for a program to take the data from the webpage or a .gpx or .loc file? Well, this is only my opinion, but I'd say no. I agree with what The Southseakers said. The part of Geopher that is interacting with Geocaching.com is nothing more than a browser wrapper. It isn't scraping data for its own purposes, it only requests the data that the user asks for and it doesn't do any damage or impact the site any more than visiting it on your PC, unlike perhaps this other site that is being referred to. To say that a website should be owed money for a commercial product accessing their site is completely unrealistic, as then every website on the internet could say that Microsoft owes them part of the profits from Windows since it includes Internet Explorer as part of its bundle, or the profits from when Opera was a paid-for application. If I click on a .gpx file on Geocaching.com, I should expect to be able to download it to my device's memory and from there, open it in any app that handles the format. As a professional web developer who has faced similar problems like this, I feel that for Geocaching.com to restrict access based on what a user's tools can do when they are interacting with the site like any other user is very hypocritical, and I accept that others may have a different perspective on this. Ok, so what is the current standing of things, then? For now, unless Groundspeak changes their minds and grants Geopher permission, the app will continue to be available on the app store, but it won't do a number of things it could do. However, that doesn't mean that there aren't things that can be improved on. The developer is still asking people to download the app and give some feedback on what you think needs to go in to fix a number of issues. You should read his latest post and give some feedback here: http://geopherlite.blogspot.com/ . Also, while this may be the first Geocaching app for the iPhone, it in all likelihood won't be the last, as we'll have to wait and see what other solutions developers, including Trimble, come up with. The iPhone will be supported for geocaching in some way, and I seriously doubt that Geocaching.com really wants to stand in the way of that.

Good news for those who have been waiting for a Geocaching app! It looks like slycrel's app, Geopher Lite, has been approved and added to the App store! My thanks and congratulations to you, sir. I'll be buying this app (the first one I've purchased so far) and trying it out later. The inclusion of a compass and distance to target should make for an easier time locating those caches than just Google Maps, so everyone check this out and let's get some feedback going. Link requires iTunes: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore...258963&mt=8

Great post, phidauex, and welcome to the site. I hope you find the hobby worth-while now that you have a GPS to start with. I think that number 7 is the big one for me. Currently, there's no easy way to get my current coordinates and find caches that are nearby. The idea of Geocaching seems to be that it's something that you can do anywhere as long as you have the tools, and the iPhone is a tool that seems made for this. I'd ideally like to either push a button to find caches nearby with location-based services, or enter coordinates for a center-point to search from if for whatever reason I want to set a location manually, then begin browsing the cache pages from there. Having an app that does this, as well as giving you distance, heading and bearing, seems like the most logical place to start before adding those dream features. Taking screenshots before you go into a low-signal area is a great idea, too, since often times Safari will lose the page you're on, or you won't have access to those high-resolution Google Maps images. I think something else that might come in handy for people is to be able to pick multiple caches and set pinpoints on the map for them all at once, so that you can set a route for yourself. Lastly, I have a tip for you to allow you to lose that pesky scrap of paper. If you browse to the cache page on Geocaching.com using the Safari browser on the iPhone, then you can click a link to pinpoint the cache in Google Maps without having to manually enter the coordinates. Go to the cache page and click on the Google Maps link about half-way down the page. It's the third link from the top in the list above the logs.

Yes, as I mentioned in another thread, it's actually pretty easy to get some basic geocaching done with just Google Maps on the iPhone. If you go to the cache page in Safari, there's a link about half-way down the page between the description and the logs under "For online maps...". Click on the Google Maps link thats the third link in the list and it opens Google Maps with a waypoint. Then you can start using the GPS to track toward it. Unfortunately, there's no measure of distance of heading/bearing once you get close to help you zero in, so the closest you're going to get for the moment is within about 100ft.

Better yet, if you're browsing the cache page on your iPhone already, there's a link on the page to Google Maps between the description and the logs under "For online maps...". If you click it, it opens up the Google Maps app with the location marked for you, and then you're off and ready to go. Then you can go back in Safari and add your log when you find it. Now all we need is an app that finds your coordinates and gives you a list of nearby caches and we've got an on-the-go paperless cache solution!

Google Maps already supports GPS coordinates. All you have to do is put them into the search. For example, in the input I typed "N 33 34.390, w 117 38.856" and it put a waypoint at the correct spot. Then I tell Google Maps to locate me and I can track my location moving toward the waypoint. It isn't going to give you the distance, so you won't really have any idea if you're 100ft or 10 ft from the cache, nor will you know if it's 5 miles or 20 miles, unless you know the area. If you try to do a search using the Directions search, where it tracks from your starting point to the endpoint, it'll estimate your coordinates to the nearest street, so that may not be preferable.

Let me first say that I would pay any reasonable amount of money for a good Geocaching app. I've stopped Geocaching almost entirely because of two reasons: There's too much prep-time to load .gpx or .loc files onto my Magellan GPS, and the thing is huge and inconvenient to lug around. This is why the GPS on the 3G iPhone is so appealing to me, but I need a really good app to make it come true. Here's what I'd like to see: Something that's a simple all-in-one paperless Geocaching solution without a bunch of extra stuff on top of it. Ideally, I'd like to never need anything but my iPhone and sometimes another GPS for extra accuracy if necessary when I'm geocaching. I don't want to have to look up geocaches before I go somewhere, I want to say, "Hey, I've got an hour to walk around here. Let's see what I can find." After launching the app and logging into my geocaching.com account, the screen should have a button to locate where I am using Core Location and a manual option to enter coordinates. Upon searching, it should center on Google Maps with some number of nearby geocaches as pinpoints on the map, with icons for each cache type if possible. Tapping on a pinpoint gives you a popup with the cache name and maybe the rating and a button to go to a page for that cache. The cache page should provide detailed information: coordinates, rating, description, logs, etc. Basically everything you get on the geocaching.com page, but formatted for better speed and readability. At the bottom of the description should be a button to make a post about the cache. Clicking it pops up a form with the keyboard and an input field to type your post as well as buttons for Found / Did Not Find / Status, etc. The cache page should also have two navigation buttons in the top row (like where you would navigate between folders in other apps). The left button would return you to the map and the right button would set the iPhone to track that cache. Tracking the cache should be simple. Present a compass or bearing/heading and a distance to the cache. You may also want to do a map view that displays Google Maps with the GPS tracking and a line toward the waypoint. For users of the original iPhone, we'd probably want to have something that gives them some information since it'll be more difficult to track toward the waypoint. For them, the map view may be the only option to help them out. Being able to use the satellite or hybrid views on the map would be nice, and Google Maps on the web has a topographical view, but I don't know if it's possible to implement that on the iPhone. Once a cache is found, the user hits back from the top of the screen and can log their find, then return to the map for the next cache. I think having something like this would make Geocaching easy and fun for anyone to do wherever they are without much investment, and would provide a very worthwhile service to already dedicated cachers. Some of what I said might be obvious and overlooked a lot of nuance like photo uploads, on-the-fly multi-waypoint routes or loading pre-defined .gpx files, and while all of that is certainly nice to have, I'd really love to see an app that does what I described as a minimum starting point. That would make Geocaching something that I could do every day instead of only when I have the time to prepare for it.

On a science and technology site, someone posted an interesting article about Moon Trees, something I'd never heard of. The name sounds bizarre, but during the Apollo 14 mission, NASA took along a number of seedlings to see if the trees that grew from them had any unusual side effects from radiation that they were exposed to on the space voyage. These seeds were planted all over the world, mostly in the US and UK. It seems to me that these monuments are things which most people have never heard of as they blend in with our every day surroundings... just like Geocaches. There may even be one in your neck of the woods and you'd never know. But place a cache there, and it's a spot that will be sure to lure cachers to see it. From a quick search, I see that there is already one cache placed at a Moon Tree in San Luis Obispo, California: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...81-0ccdbdd051e8 This website has information about the moon trees and an aproximate location of where the ones planted in the United States are. Go out and plant a cache! http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/moon_tree.html

Double posted.

It would be right here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocaching

Maybe you can work out a way with the admins to take over ownership of the caches. If there are too many, maybe you can distribute them to other people willing to care for them.

Okay, let me clarify. I first tried to load my entire GSAK database as a multi-cache GPX file, but the page kept coming up blank. Through process of elimination, I kept generating the GPX file starting with one cache until I had added them all and found two that caused the problem. I then tested those two caches individually with LOC files from the website and generating a map for only those waypoints by themselves and it worked, but it was using the GC code rather than the name that the GPX files include. So, I came to the conclusion that there are problems with the names of the caches in the GPX version that is causing the HTML to not render. Also, I looked at the archived LOC files from the site and, sure enough, they're lacking data. I guess this is Geocaching.com's fault and not the software. The reason I can't get GPX files off the Geocaching.com website to test is because I'm not a paid member and don't have access to those types of files from Geocaching.com, but I can generate them myself in GSAK, which is what I've been doing. Oh, I also tried out Polylines after the last post and it was able to handle the entire GPX file, even with the bad cache names. It seems to ignore that part because it doesn't show any of that information and only uses the lat/long data to draw the route.

Use this site for all your format conversion needs: http://jeeep.com/details/coord/

I really think it depends on the cacher. I'm not into caching for the treasure, but good loot makes a find all the more fun. The best prize I've found so far was a jacket patch with the NES game, Excitebike, on it. And in the next cache I found a Mario pin. That's some of the coolest loot I've seen. Lately I've been leaving foreign coins in the smaller caches I've been to because A ) I know that it'll always fit and I like to travel light and B ) from what I hear, there are collectors who find interesting coins to be good treasure. Some people might not think it's as interesting and I don't blame them, but I've got a lot of them. When I know I'm going to a larger cache, I'll try to bring something larger in case there's something that I feel is worthy of a different prize.

Bug report: Okay, I figured out why the GPX file I exported from GSAK wasn't working. There were two caches in the list that it had problems with. I downloaded the .LOC file from the Geocaching website for each of these and it can import them into a map fine, but LOC files use the GC code rather than the title, so I still suspect that the software is having a problem with the titles of the caches. One is "Cars" (too few characters, the software needs to put in spaces if it can't handle fewer than X many characters), the other was called "Pizza-Pizza @ the Park" (The @ must be the problem here, it is the only special character that isn't in the titles of any other caches). When I remove those two caches from the list before generating the .GPX file, it creates the map perfectly. I can't get GPX files from the website, but I assume that they would work the same. I also found another bug while testing out .LOC files downloaded from the website. The software gives an error when trying to import any .LOC files from caches that have been archived. Caches which have been made temporarily unavailable work fine, just those that are actually archived. It gives the following error when importing such .LOC files. "Not a valid GPX or LOC file! Invalid files might lock the program. etc..." I'll keep testing and let you know of any other things I find. Thanks for the website, by the way.

I was thinking about this earlier and it seems like the perfect place to suggest it. I just recovered from oral surgery and have a few empty perscription containers left over. The clear orange plastic kind with the "child-proof" lid. They are designed to be kept sterile, so should hold up against weather and the clear plastic won't alarm any nervous authorities who find them in suspicious places. The only thing I'd do before using them is to wash them out with hot water just to minimize the already slight chance of any kind of allergic reaction someone may have from contact with the medicine that used to be in them. I've never seen anyone use these for a microcache, but it seems like a good idea to me.

Sorry. I searched, but not well enough.

Okay, I finally installed the latest release and gave it a try. I'm glad that it has GSAK support, but it's still not quite perfect. I tried loading my whole GSAK database in a GPX file, about 50 caches, into it and it successfully generated the HTML, but when I tried to load it up all I got was a white page with a blank DIV. Hmm. Something's causing the HTML to break. I messed around with it a bit more and eventually tried it with a smaller selection of caches, about six, and it worked as intended. Since you said that it can manage 300 caches at once, there must be some sort of problem character that's causing it to fail to render the page completly. If you like I can send you my GSAK database and you can try it yourself. You'd have a better idea of what to look for than I.

Hey, crackhead, any possibility of tossing up a website with a changelog and build number to keep this sorted out? With how fast you're releasing new editions, it might be a bit of bother for you to have to post, but it's a hassle to look through this thread and see if I need to redownload the zip file. Also, I'd like to link to your tool on the Geocaching entry on Wikipedia.

Good tip on pointing out that article. The security problem's been fixed with the latest version of Greasemonkey, version 0.3.5, which disables the feature that may be exploited. If you're running the latest version, don't worry about it, but if not, update right away! Also, thanks for the link with the user script for this! Someone mentioned it to me months ago, but I could only find the one that puts a link to Geocaching.com on the Google Maps page. Now I've got it going both ways!

Aside from GPX and LOC, you might want to look into KMZ support. It's the format that is used for Keyhole and Google Earth. I imagine that it would be useful to be able to import these formats directly from Google Earth for those who use it. I know that you don't use Google Earth because it's only compatable with newer versions of Windows, crackhead, but you can still get some example KMZ files from http://www.googleearthhacks.com and maybe you can deconstruct the files enough to get started. Glad to see you've made so much progress on your program. Any plans to add support for Google Moon in an upcoming release?

I just found out about a new Podcast all about Geocaching. Check out PodCacher, which is already up to Episode 3. I haven't listened yet, but the description seems to imply that it's part of a new type of cache that has audio clues. There's also http://www.georadio.org/ and http://cachecast.podbus.com/ that I found by searching the forums for those who, like me, were unaware of any Geocaching podcasts out there. I've got quite a lot to listen to when I go out tomorrow to catch up on the caches I've missed while sick.