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Going paperless caching with Sprint HTC smartphone


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Is your new phone running the Android OS? If so, check out NeonGeo. Less than 1/2 the price of "the official app" (which is extremely buggy and has a development team that adds features nobody wants instead of fixing serious usability bugs), and is already a far better program that is under extremely rapid development by a guy with almost 6,000 cache finds to his credit. He (Mikko) understands what it takes to have a good geocaching program in the field.

 

Check the website http://www.neongeo.com as well as the forum there.

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I just got a used Sprint HTC smartphone. It has/will have no service. I was wondering if there is a way to store cache info (descriptions, hints, etc.) in the phone offline, so I could go paperless while caching.

 

Any comments or ideas? Thanks!

 

I'm no smartphone expert, and I'm just replying to this as it's slipping off the main page after being moved. But I think the main question is, is this a Droid? HTC also makes Windows phones, and Sprint has them both. Not that I could answer your question after you clarify. :)

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I just got a used Sprint HTC smartphone. It has/will have no service. I was wondering if there is a way to store cache info (descriptions, hints, etc.) in the phone offline, so I could go paperless while caching.

 

Any comments or ideas? Thanks!

 

I'm no smartphone expert, and I'm just replying to this as it's slipping off the main page after being moved. But I think the main question is, is this a Droid? HTC also makes Windows phones, and Sprint has them both. Not that I could answer your question after you clarify. :)

I don't know, but if this helps, its a HTC touch diamond. :)

Edited by TheCacheSeeker
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I just went caching this weekend with a Windows Mobile phone (not a Windows Phone) while my Pre 2 is being repaired. There isn't much WM software being updated now. I tried out BeeLine, GCzII, GeoScout, and PocketDrake. BeeLine and GeoScout have a trial, and cost money after 30 days. The others are free. I found PocketDrake the most usable, although far from perfect. It is buggy, and it ate my fieldnotes. It remembered that I had found the cache, the time and date, but the text was gone. I didn't try the direct upload for the notes, I just saved them.

 

PocketDrake accepts GPX imports, and even displays the listing correctly if it has HTML and pictures. It also has nice features like an audio alarm as you approach the cache and a 'radar' display when you're close. It is hard to describe, you'll have to try it out.

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I just got a used Sprint HTC smartphone. It has/will have no service. I was wondering if there is a way to store cache info (descriptions, hints, etc.) in the phone offline, so I could go paperless while caching.

 

Any comments or ideas? Thanks!

 

I'm no smartphone expert, and I'm just replying to this as it's slipping off the main page after being moved. But I think the main question is, is this a Droid? HTC also makes Windows phones, and Sprint has them both. Not that I could answer your question after you clarify. :)

I don't know, but if this helps, its a HTC touch diamond. :)

 

That actually appears to be a Windows Phone, and not a Droid!! If I'm not mistaken, the Windows phone App for Geocaching is quite new. And I'm talking like within the last couple of weeks! But as I said before, that's about as far as I can take you. :o

Edited by Mr.Yuck
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The Touch Diamond runs Windows Mobile 6.1, not Windows Phone 7, so there is no official app for it.

I use BasicGPS on my WM6.1 Tilt. You can load a pocket query onto it and it should have pretty much all the info. (To bring up the extra details, including description and logs, you would use the "Cache Location Details" menu item and then click a red GPX button and it will popup a local html file in the default browser showing the info for the selected cache. (The HTML file gets created from the .gpx file info, not accessed online.) It does have a feature called "Compass-in-your-head Audio" but I don't really use it. It doesn't use moving maps, and does not require any data connection. (Though it can do other stuff if you had one.) It is freeware and may not be actively developed anymore. I've actually got two copies on my Tilt, one in internal memory for Geocaches (not quite paperless), and one on the storage card for Benchmarks. (Which I can mostly do paperless.)

http://www.freewareppc.com/travel/basicgps.shtml

 

Another program I find useful at times is NavComputer. It can display a moving map, and you can download map data on your computer to transfer to the phone. It does not do routing, and while it can import .gpx files, it won't display anything but a generic icon and the name. But it is also free and does not need a data connection. (Though with a data connection, even wifi, it can be configured to download and save maps of an area even without a computer. It takes quite a while if downloading the higher resolution maps of course.)

http://navicomputer.com/

 

I use this program to download maps for NavComputer rather then NavMapper:

http://mobac.sourceforge.net/

 

For getting driving directions to a point near the cache, I have CoPilot v8. It is totally useless for any off-road navigation and I'm not sure the maps are all that up to date. (It has a "snap to road" feature that I don't see a way to turn off.) But it was one of the few WM6.1 compatible GPS programs I could find that does not require a data connection. Loading Geocaches onto it requires converting the file(s) into TomTom .ovl files, which GPSBabel can do. CoPilot v8 is not free though. And the newer version does not apparently support WM6.1.

http://www.copilotlive.com/us/personal/winMobile.asp

 

Edit: Minor note, I tend to forget about this, but NavComputer I guess is actually donationware. After a while it will start showing a minor nag screen on start asking you to donate.

Edited by EdrickV
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