first cache find with iPhone and Geopher Lite

[We Play Outside]

Today I found my second ever cache, first one without experienced friends along, and using only an iPhone with the Geopher Lite application. On the one hand, if a newbie like me can do this I suppose that speaks to how well the app works for geocaching (and of course we were in a place with a good signal). But I did have some issues I thought I'd throw out there for discussion...

 

The first thing I noticed was the app takes a while to refresh your position, so you need to wait several seconds, sometimes up to a minute at times, before it resets your current coordinates. This means you either need to walk very slowly when you get close to the cache, or stop every few minutes and allow it to catch up to you. Sometimes the reading changed widely, but the accuracy readings helped me determine which ones to ignore...I'd just wait another minute for it to update the location again.

 

There was one weird problem that got pretty frustrating after a while though....I guess the last time I used the MAPS function on my iPhone we were passing through Burnaby. I pressed the little circle button that marks your location. Well, on today's cache hunt I used the map function in Geopher Lite to figure out where we were in relation to the cache and it put me back in Burnaby! Suddenly the cache was 5 km away instead of 600 m! I had to wait a minute or two for the location to refresh in Geopher...

 

Every time the iPhone went into standby mode Geopher Lite would open with those Burnaby coordinates as my present location. I'd wait a while and eventually it would reset to my current coordinates and update the distance and direction markers. That was really annoying.

 

When we were getting close to the cache location and I was preventing the Phone from going into standby, sometimes the location would mysteriously revert to the Burnaby coordinates right in front of my eyes! I would then have to wait a while until it figured out where I was again.

 

I have no idea why this happened. But I did find the cache; at it's closest iPhone had me 4.9 m from the location...I suppose that is pretty good.

[+slycrel]

Today I found my second ever cache, first one without experienced friends along, and using only an iPhone with the Geopher Lite application. On the one hand, if a newbie like me can do this I suppose that speaks to how well the app works for geocaching (and of course we were in a place with a good signal). But I did have some issues I thought I'd throw out there for discussion...

 

The first thing I noticed was the app takes a while to refresh your position, so you need to wait several seconds, sometimes up to a minute at times, before it resets your current coordinates. This means you either need to walk very slowly when you get close to the cache, or stop every few minutes and allow it to catch up to you. Sometimes the reading changed widely, but the accuracy readings helped me determine which ones to ignore...I'd just wait another minute for it to update the location again.

 

There was one weird problem that got pretty frustrating after a while though....I guess the last time I used the MAPS function on my iPhone we were passing through Burnaby. I pressed the little circle button that marks your location. Well, on today's cache hunt I used the map function in Geopher Lite to figure out where we were in relation to the cache and it put me back in Burnaby! Suddenly the cache was 5 km away instead of 600 m! I had to wait a minute or two for the location to refresh in Geopher...

 

Every time the iPhone went into standby mode Geopher Lite would open with those Burnaby coordinates as my present location. I'd wait a while and eventually it would reset to my current coordinates and update the distance and direction markers. That was really annoying.

 

When we were getting close to the cache location and I was preventing the Phone from going into standby, sometimes the location would mysteriously revert to the Burnaby coordinates right in front of my eyes! I would then have to wait a while until it figured out where I was again.

 

I have no idea why this happened. But I did find the cache; at it's closest iPhone had me 4.9 m from the location...I suppose that is pretty good.

 

Hi there, glad you are enjoying Geopher Lite! I am the developer, and sorry to hear that you had a somewhat frustrating experience even if you did find the cache.

 

I have not heard of this coordinate reverting problem you are talking about. Can you give me some more information on it? Geopher Lite is supposed to prevent the iPhone from sleeping when in the target screen. When the application closes it should be saving your current location. I will double-check to make sure this is happening when you hit the map button but it should be. When your device went into standby mode what were you doing? Were you in google maps or geopher lite? Also google maps should open in relation to your currently set target. Was your target location reverting back to the burnaby location or was the burnaby location your current position when you started geopher lite?

 

The current version (1.0.4) doesn't update your location when you are setting the target on the target screen. In the new version (1.0.5) there is a preference to always have the GPS turned on. 1.0.5 also updates more often, so you shouldn't have the lag issue that I've heard from a few people. I had hoped that apple would have reviewed the update already but it hasn't been approved yet and has been in review well over a week now.

 

If you have any more questions feel free to PM me or preferrably an email as I check that much more often than these boards. Thanks for sharing your experience!

[We Play Outside]

I have not heard of this coordinate reverting problem you are talking about. Can you give me some more information on it? Geopher Lite is supposed to prevent the iPhone from sleeping when in the target screen. When the application closes it should be saving your current location. I will double-check to make sure this is happening when you hit the map button but it should be. When your device went into standby mode what were you doing? Were you in google maps or geopher lite? Also google maps should open in relation to your currently set target. Was your target location reverting back to the burnaby location or was the burnaby location your current position when you started geopher lite?

 

Hi! I was using Geopher Lite and pressed the "map" button when I had located the cache I wanted to find and entered the coordinates into Geopher Lite. At first it didn't show my current location, so I exited (by pressing the HOME button on the iPhone) and went into the iPhone "Maps" application, thinking that perhaps the Map button in Geopher just showed you where the cache was but wasn't able to pinpoint your current locale (I now know that it can). Anyways, it was the "Maps" application in iPhone's menu that had me in Burnaby (and I hadn't been in that location in days, certainly not when I was using Geopher). I then exited that application by pressing the iPhone HOME button, went back into Geopher Lite, and that's when it started having the reverting problem.

 

I did find that the iPhone did not go into sleep mode when the target screen was showing. Sometimes I'd press the HOME button on the iPhone to do something else (eg. check my email), and when I went back into Geopher Lite it seemed to be where I left off (target coordinates were right, webpage on Geocaching.com was where I last visited), but the current location would show Burnaby with a corresponding distance (5 km) on the target screen. After a while (30 seconds or more) it would update and my current location would be displayed with the correct distance to the cache (a few metres).

 

So at first I thought "ah, I better not use any other apps and just keep the target screen open" and that's when I discovered that it would revert to this Burnaby location every once in a while even when locked on the target screen. I wondered if maybe this occurs when the device is trying to take a new fix and can't get one? Though I still don't know why it would use that burnaby coordinate rather than the last one it had...

 

Frankly, it was all very weird. I will say that I have played around with it here at home today and it seems to be working just fine! So maybe it was just one of those weird cyber-gremlin events, lol.

 

I have already received one upgrade, not sure which one, but I'll look forward to the next one. I have to say that despite the little bugs I am LOVING this application and I'd like to thank you for putting it out there. I'm not only doing paperless caches but I don't even have a GPS and I found a cache...that's pretty neat in my books!

[+slycrel]

I have not heard of this coordinate reverting problem you are talking about. Can you give me some more information on it? Geopher Lite is supposed to prevent the iPhone from sleeping when in the target screen. When the application closes it should be saving your current location. I will double-check to make sure this is happening when you hit the map button but it should be. When your device went into standby mode what were you doing? Were you in google maps or geopher lite? Also google maps should open in relation to your currently set target. Was your target location reverting back to the burnaby location or was the burnaby location your current position when you started geopher lite?

 

Hi! I was using Geopher Lite and pressed the "map" button when I had located the cache I wanted to find and entered the coordinates into Geopher Lite. At first it didn't show my current location, so I exited (by pressing the HOME button on the iPhone) and went into the iPhone "Maps" application, thinking that perhaps the Map button in Geopher just showed you where the cache was but wasn't able to pinpoint your current locale (I now know that it can). Anyways, it was the "Maps" application in iPhone's menu that had me in Burnaby (and I hadn't been in that location in days, certainly not when I was using Geopher). I then exited that application by pressing the iPhone HOME button, went back into Geopher Lite, and that's when it started having the reverting problem.

 

I did find that the iPhone did not go into sleep mode when the target screen was showing. Sometimes I'd press the HOME button on the iPhone to do something else (eg. check my email), and when I went back into Geopher Lite it seemed to be where I left off (target coordinates were right, webpage on Geocaching.com was where I last visited), but the current location would show Burnaby with a corresponding distance (5 km) on the target screen. After a while (30 seconds or more) it would update and my current location would be displayed with the correct distance to the cache (a few metres).

 

So at first I thought "ah, I better not use any other apps and just keep the target screen open" and that's when I discovered that it would revert to this Burnaby location every once in a while even when locked on the target screen. I wondered if maybe this occurs when the device is trying to take a new fix and can't get one? Though I still don't know why it would use that burnaby coordinate rather than the last one it had...

 

Frankly, it was all very weird. I will say that I have played around with it here at home today and it seems to be working just fine! So maybe it was just one of those weird cyber-gremlin events, lol.

 

I have already received one upgrade, not sure which one, but I'll look forward to the next one. I have to say that despite the little bugs I am LOVING this application and I'd like to thank you for putting it out there. I'm not only doing paperless caches but I don't even have a GPS and I found a cache...that's pretty neat in my books!

 

I can't for sure explain what you were seeing there... Geopher Lite remembers your last updated position between sessions, but it should only load that once on startup, not when it loses a signal. It's possible that if you lost your GPS signal entirely that the assisted portion of the GPS took over and the cell network was telling you you were really 5 km away. I have seen similar things happen sometimes. That's the only explanation that makes sense to me, but I will double-check things and make sure that the code is working correctly. Thanks for the helpful post and I hope that you continue to enjoy Geopher Lite!