We're newbies and we love the iPhone 4 App... but we need help

[+nedyken]

I know, I know... I'm the worst kind of person. I go to a forum just chalked full of people asking the exact same question over and over again... I skim over it... quickly panic and give up... and ask the same darn question again. Sorry. I'm terrible. Please be gentle. I'll do my best to be specific and as concise as possible.

 

My girlfriend and I have been geocaching for a few weeks. We already love it. She's already made a "geocaching" kit... we've done more walking/hiking in the past few weeks than we've done in the entire 2 years we've been together. It's a blast. We're hooked.

 

I've been just using my iPhone 4 and the pretty solid geocaching app. I actually love it. Our workflow is pretty simple (amateur?) right now. We go on geocaching.com ... scout out some interesting areas (on the website you can pull up a map of EVERYWHERE and just see where geocaches are hidden) ... then once we figure out where we'd like to go geocaching, we just drive to the area and park. The handy iphone app lets you search for geocaches in your immediate proximity... and boom... we're geocaching. Super simple and user-friendly for finding caches, routing to caches using the built-in map (or the iphone's map application)... super simple to pull up recent logs, photos and hints if necessary. Super simple to post your log, deal with any trackables, etc. Excellent app.

 

That said, it didn't take us long to discover the...

Obvious problems:

 

#1 - the iPhone GPS is already driving me nuts. It was all fine-and-dandy when we were searching for caches around the city of Seattle... but as soon as we tried hiking into the woods, it started laughing at me. The GPS is pretty inaccurate. It bounces all over the place. Says i'm a foot away, then 5 feet away then 10 then 100 then 5... UGH!! Luckily we've had great success in spite of this, but it's enough of a frustration that It's starting to damper on the fun. Are standalone devices THAT much better?

 

#2 - Battery life is trash. My phone usually dies after about 5 hours (mainly because I'm playing with the app non-stop). We're thinking of getting some battery-life extension device. I imagine a standalone GPS would be a lot better for this.

 

...

 

OK I can probably just stop right there. Those two issues are a big enough pain in the tush that I think it's safe to say we are in the market for a standalone device. Here's my confusion though...

How does the workflow change?: I have no idea which GPS device to buy or how i'll end up using it. Like I said, I really enjoy the iPhone app. It's fantastic. I am under the assumption that a GPS device can not replace that experience (ability to easily find caches, post pictures, log trackables, comment on the cache, etc). So am I basically just looking for a device to use in CONJUNCTION with the iphone? I've never owned a standalone. How should I expect this to work? Will I be pulling finding/pulling up the caches with my iphone... then looking at the GPS coordinates at the top of the screen... and manually punching them into my standalone GPS to get accurate readings?... or is there something more I should be looking at?

 

My girlfriend's aunt said she'd give us her old handheld GPS that she has no use for. It's a "Magellan Triton 400". Will that be sufficient? We honestly don't mind spending money on a nice handheld device... we're just not sure what we'd be paying for. Do some of them incorporate "geocaching" so well that it would potentially replace our iphone and change our workflow entirely?... or do I just keep using the iphone and simply need a device (like her Aunt's Triton 400) to manually punch in coordinates and help us when we're confused in the woods?

 

Any advice/insight would be very appreciated. I realize I could probably get these answers from looking at the forum, but the posts I was finding seemed to be from folks who had neither an iphone 4 OR a GPS and were looking for the pros and cons of each. I already understand the pros and cons of the iphone 4... just not sure where to go from here.

[+Bear and Ragged]

You could get an "All singing, all dancing GPS with bells on" you do need to have a way of downloading the caches to it (usually by computer) you can read the cache description and last 4 logs.

 

Or. You could get a simple GPS, input the coords by hand in the field, or plan ahead and enter them at home, and use the phone to read the extra details if you need to...

 

Or.

Go for something in between.

 

Worthwhile looking at Premium Membership and using Pocket Queries to help loading cache information to GPS. Most phone apps will also read PQ's from the site.

 

Worth a read > http://www.follow-the-arrow.co.uk/resources/gps.html

Written by one of the UK reviewers, UK biased, but may give you an insight to what you may consider you want!

 

Welcome!

Edited June 30, 2012 by Bear and Ragged

[+nedyken]

awesome link "Bear and Ragged". Thanks a bunch. From that, I think I definitely want a "paperless" and "touch screen" model... probably one of the Garmin Oregons? The Montanas seem a lot more expensive and I don't know if I'd really need all the extra storage space.

 

Still slightly confused on the "maps" part of it. Do you have to pay extra for specific maps or is it unnecessary?

[+Bear and Ragged]

Most GPS unit come with a basemap. Showing large towns/cities, and major roads only.

Otherwise you have to buy maps...

There are 'free' maps available on the web http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/ seems to cover mos of the USA.

 

Or there are maps sourced from Open Street Map > http://www.openstreetmap.org/ a UK cacher makes a few sets for the UK.

[+Lieblweb]

Workflow?? That sounds like WORK. This is supposed to be fun!!

 

Slow down there sailor.... sit down, take a deep breath....

 

My husband and I started with iphones and we quickly realized it was time to buy a handheld. Relax.... Keep caching with the iphones and do some research about GPS units. If there's one thing I will mention - you'll want a GPS unit that has a 3 axis compass. Why? Because you're used to using it on the iphone. If your GPS doesn't have it, you'll wish it did (we sold our first GPS after the first week of using it because it didn't have it).

 

Getting a handheld GPS and premium membership is your first step. Learning how to use the GPS & pocket queries is the next step. Yeah, sounds like work doesn't it? You'll get it eventually...no worries. But keep caching with the phones until you're settled in. It's a major learning curve....

 

Workflow? After 1 year and 2 months - we currently have 2 iphones and 2 handhelds and one car GPS.....The car GPS gets us to parking. The handhelds are for getting to GZ and the iphones are for logging & taking pictures, logging trackables, etc. We'll never stop using the iphones while we geocache.

 

Don't worry about that either...your *Workflow* will fall into place after you get setup with all your gadgets.

Edited July 1, 2012 by Lieblweb

[+nedyken]

Workflow?? That sounds like WORK. This is supposed to be fun!!

 

Slow down there sailor.... sit down, take a deep breath....

 

My husband and I started with iphones and we quickly realized it was time to buy a handheld. Relax.... Keep caching with the iphones and do some research about GPS units. If there's one thing I will mention - you'll want a GPS unit that has a 3 axis compass. Why? Because you're used to using it on the iphone. If your GPS doesn't have it, you'll wish it did (we sold our first GPS after the first week of using it because it didn't have it).

 

Getting a handheld GPS and premium membership is your first step. Learning how to use the GPS & pocket queries is the next step. Yeah, sounds like work doesn't it? You'll get it eventually...no worries. But keep caching with the phones until you're settled in. It's a major learning curve....

 

Workflow? After 1 year and 2 months - we currently have 2 iphones and 2 handhelds and one car GPS.....The car GPS gets us to parking. The handhelds are for getting to GZ and the iphones are for logging & taking pictures, logging trackables, etc. We'll never stop using the iphones while we geocache.

 

Don't worry about that either...your *Workflow* will fall into place after you get setup with all your gadgets.

Lol I just felt like saying Workflow. :-P

 

I think i'll buy a handheld off craigslist. Looks like my options are the Garmin eTrex 20, Dakota 20 and Oregon 450... or the Magellen eXplorist GC... looks like all can be had for 50-150 used.

Edited July 1, 2012 by nedyken

[+Chief301]

I'll vouch for the Oregon....started out with an iPhone like you guys, learned a lot about caching and had a lot of fun, but realized for most of the same reasons that I wanted something more. Went the cheap(ish) route and got a Garmin Etrex Legend HCX. That worked fine for about a year but I eventually realized I wanted a paperless unit with a 3-axis electronic compass. After much comparison shopping I went with the Oregon 550. If you are a heavy iPhone user the touch screen would probably come more naturally than some of the joystick and button arrangements on other units. I'm quite pleased with the Oregon.

 

The major difference between the 450 and the 550 is that the 550 has a built in camera. Other than that, they are essentially the same unit. If a camera is a feature you can live without, the 450 is around 80-100 bucks cheaper.

 

There's still a place for the iPhone...it's great for picking up a quick couple of caches on the spur of the moment, and the maps and satellite imagery are much better, you'll probably find yourself using both depending on the situation.

Edited July 1, 2012 by Chief301

[+Hot Pepper Crew]

I just finished posting in another thread about this exact thing. My wife and I both have an iPhone 4s and I have an eTrex Vista HCx. We've found 600+ caches, 95% of them exclusively on our iPhones. You will eventually learn battery management, ie turn on your phone, figure out how far the next cache is, turn off phone and walk until you're almost there before turning it on again. We only use our gps when we are caching in heavily canopied woods, and then only when we are close to narrow down ground zero. We still log from the field using our iPhone, including photos and I honestly don't think we would cache nearly as often if we had to use a dedicated gps exclusively. I couldn't imagine having to log everything once I got home! Today we hike 5 miles and found 9 caches, all in heavy woods, and only took the gps out twice when the iPhone plus hint weren't enough to get the cache.

[+nedyken]

I have to give a hat tip to Chief301 for exchanging a few emails with me. I had a bunch of detailed questions and he was pretty awesome about answering all of them. There's definitely a learning curve with this stuff, but I got the basic idea after a couple days. It was more about understanding what was the purpose of certain tools (like BaseCamp and MapSource). It was all very alien to me. Had to figure out that I'd have to acquire a map... use an app like MapSource to chop out the part of the map I wanted to transfer to my device... figure out what the heck a pocket query was... etc. But I think I have the basics down now.

 

I ended up buying a used Garmin Oregon 450 off craigslist for $120. I have it set up with the city navigator map and a free Washington State topo map from the aforementioned http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/ ...

 

The good news for me at least is that I live in the Northwest... and I found a free Northwest Trails map ( http://www.switchbacks.com/nwtrails/ ) that seems to show every trail I probably will ever visit out here. It just overlays over either the City Navigator or the Topo map I have installed. I dig it. From what I can tell, being able to see those trails will be a huge benefit when we start to do more hiking. I noticed that the maps on the iPhone (geocaching app) were nowhere near as detailed as that when it comes to specific trails.

 

Pocket Queries were simple enough to get a hang of and we already made good use of the Garmin a couple days ago. I'll still probably use my iPhone a bit for posting logs and for using stuff like satellite view (which is awesome on urban caches). I'm seeing how the tools on the Garmin can be really helpful as we start to move more towards hiking into the woods... and so far it does indeed seem like the GPS on the Garmin is a lot more accurate.

 

I appreciate all the help everyone has given in this thread

Edited July 5, 2012 by nedyken

[+thebruce0]

I know, I know, if I reply to another iPhone thread then my response will be pretty predictable... but I thought I'd just address your two concerns from the OP. Main concession: it is definitely good to have that dedicated hand-held, especially when caching in the woods.

 

So, quick disclaimer: I started caching with the 3GS, and recently moved to the 4S at launch. Been caching over 3 years, exclusively with iPhone. Cached in heavy forest, in wilderness, thick urban landscape, desert, and used the gps over water (w/o cell signal). Always been sufficient for caching.

 

So for point #1: Accuracy. I find that if you focus on using the distance and bearing (compass) when caching with a digital device, you'll end up with far more frustration than needed (whether with a smartphone or a handheld). Especially on the iPhone, if you use the satellite imagery, then it's much easier to visualize and grasp the area you're in and where you're going - the only drawback in my experience is when A) there are no visual landmarks on the imagery nearby by which to navigate, or the satellite imagery in the area is very low quality/inaccurate (more noticeable in remote areas - though if you're going to a remote area, whether caching or not, one should always take a dedicated GPS device, imo, if only for safety), or C) the posted coordinates are incorrect (and this is a drawback to ANY gps device ). Some might think using satellite imagery is cheating, but hey you cache however you want, yes? (to which I'd also say using anything other than a physical compass and paper maps would be cheating )

 

For point #2: Battery. A few general things to consider here... First, when not using the GPS, turn it off. The official app doesn't currently allow that (though Geosphere does), but if you background the app, the GPS should stop running (eg, for when traveling between caches). Second, if traveling between caches with a vehicle, plug the phone in, however briefly. Third, you could pick up an external battery pack. I don't recommend single unit proprietary batteries that require a plug to charge again before using, but rather an external AA battery pack. I bought this AA battery pack ($20) a while back and it's proven invaluable! A handful of batteries, or a couple of sets of rechargeables for a long, full day of caching works wonders. I typically can get a decent caching trip on one full phone charge, but if it's near dying, 4 AA's can provide another full phone charge. Usually that's enough. And rechargeables don't cost anything extra each use (like buying more batteries).

 

Essentially, accuracy and battery life are weaknesses of smartphone caching, but they're far from hindrances to still having wonderful, exciting experiences, and they're not barriers to actually finding any kind of geocache (which many seem to think ). Quite often I have friends glaring down at their dedicated GPSr's wandering in circles, still waiting for it to settle, yet I've already located where the cache is and find it before them. Ultimately, it's not so much the device that matters, but moreso how you cache with it. Many will say: When you're within 20-30 feet, put your device away (whatever it is) and use your geosense

 

All that said, the optimal caching kit would consist of a smartphone and a quality dedicated GPS handheld, as that combo definitely covers all the bases

Edited July 5, 2012 by thebruce0

[+coreyandmisha]

Thanks Ned for the post! I pretty much had the same question but I couldn't seem to find the answers I was looking for until I read your post. My wife and I just started Geocaching, we literally just found our first one the other day. After several failed attempts using an iphone I was just about to give up. I didn't realize the Iphone was so shifty. I'll just have to get a hand held like you did to support the Iphone. Good luck on your adventures!

[+Chief301]

Nedyken, thanks for the kind words, and you're welcome! The 450 should work out great for you.

 

Thebruce, I agree, the iPhone does a fine job locating caches if you learn to work around its drawbacks, as you seem to have done. I always end up using them both when caching...the iPhone with its more detailed maps and satellite imagery is used for driving to the cache location, then I'll switch over to the Oregon once I'm out on foot. But as you alluded to, there have been a handful of times when the Garmin was just acting all screwy on me for reasons unknown, and the iPhone saved the day. They do both have their place.

[+nedyken]

I'll try to keep this brief, but wanted to post an update on this thread. As I explained, I found a used Garmin Oregon 450 off craiglist for $120. I had a chance to use it yesterday for our first attempt at real hiking/geocaching.

 

First... I still LOVE the iPhone app for a number of reasons. If you live in the city/suburbs and have zero intention of ever exploring a mountain/forest/park... it's probably going to be fine for you. It's think the map views and interface are cleaner than most dedicated GPS devices. The satellite maps are fantastic for urban caching (where you can see landmarks/buildings/etc). It's a very easy experience... start the app, run a search for you area... and boom... You're off and running. I will continue to use it for randomly finding geocaches when I'm out and about with my girlfriend.

 

That said, I went on a hike yesterday... and the iPhone was absolutely USELESS. Zero reception. Zero internet... wonky GPS. Just absolutely useless for geocaching. And of course, even if it had worked, satellite view (my favorite feature) would have been useless anyways... all you'd see is tree cover. I have to question anyone who claims the iPhone is "all you'd need". Anyone who says that probably lives in the city and has never been on a hike. If I'm wrong, someone please correct me. Up until yesterday I had been using my Garmin and iPhone collectively. I'd use the Garmin for finding caches and then post logs with my iPhone. That was absolutely impossible yesterday. Absolutely no connectivity once we were in the forest. It was useless.

 

Now... I believe it might be possible to use pocket queries (much like you'd do with a dedicated GPS) to download geocaches for offline use. However, I am not entirely sure how downloading map data would work on the phone. Seems to me you'd need to also download the maps for the to be effective. BTW, if you are confused what I'm talking about here... put your iPhone in "airplane mode" and try loading up google maps. Having issues? Yup. It's because your phone needs connectivity to download the map data you are trying to access. Without internet connectivity, it can't load map data. This is why my phone was essentially useless today.

 

The Garmin, however, was fantastic. Because I had a free "Northwest Trails" map loaded on it, I was able to see exactly where I was taking us through the woods and know exactly which of the many interconnecting trails to take us down. We were out there for 7 hours. I had the Garmin on the entire time. Thanks to Garmin's "BaseCamp" app, I can see that we walked a total of 10.2 miles. We found 18 geocaches. It was a blast. Because my iPhone was useless, I simply used my Garmin and selected "found" or "not found" for each cache we attempted. When we got home, I discovered how exceptionally easy it is to plug the Garmin into my computer, upload the "field notes" file into geocaching.com and start posting logs for the 18 caches we found. In fact, it was so easy that I think I'll be doing this for all our large geocaching adventures... it beats fiddling with the phone trying to type a log at each individual cache.

 

Here's a screen shot from BaseCamp that shows the entire Geocache/hike loop we took:

 

 

Thank you to everyone who gave me advice in this thread. I absolutely do not regret buying the Garmin. The iPhone may be all someone needs if they are looking for caches in neighborhoods... but there is no way I would have been able to geocache those trails today without a dedicated GPS device.

Edited July 9, 2012 by nedyken

[+thebruce0]

I have to question anyone who claims the iPhone is "all you'd need". Anyone who says that probably lives in the city and has never been on a hike. If I'm wrong, someone please correct me.

Consider yourself corrected.

 

That said, as mentioned above, I'd definitely not recommend anyone go on deep woods excursions with only a smartphone and no dedicated GPS device. Not just for geocaching concerns, but personal safety. Plus, I don't think anyone here said an iPhone is "all you'd need" (in any possible circumstance)

However...

 

Now... I believe it might be possible to use pocket queries (much like you'd do with a dedicated GPS) to download geocaches for offline use. However, I am not entirely sure how downloading map data would work on the phone. Seems to me you'd need to also download the maps for the to be effective.

You're spot on. Pocket queries can be downloaded for offline use on the phone, as can maps - topo, satellite, and road, if you use the proper app. The official app isn't the best, IMO, for offline use, but as far as I know it is offline capable. I use Geosphere, which does cache maps (the most recent xMB of map data viewed), and uses its own offline database exclusively (until v3 is released, which will have Live API support) - its database is updated through GPX downloads and PQs. So yep, when there's no data signal (not when the phone is in airplane mode - which also disables gps) the iPhone can still be used for offline caching. Field notes can be saved, maps will load from its cache, and geocaching can continue unabated so that field notes can uploaded to logs once back in connectivity.

 

Without internet connectivity, it can't load map data. This is why my phone was essentially useless today.

First, indeed there are many areas especially out of urban centers where there is no data coverage (even IN urban centers, which is extremely annoying ). But if you're going out into rural areas where you think there will be no coverage, just make sure to cache your maps, or use an app that allows you to download maps for offline use. Just remember not to turn on Airplane mode on the iPhone as that disables the GPS as well.

 

Unfortunately if you often cache in areas with no data coverage then caching with a smartphone (while doable) would just be far more trouble than it's worth But it's not the gps itself that's the problem, it's just knowing how to use the smartphone optimally when there's no data. For some, it's not worth the effort, and that's fine :

[+waterlubber]

I know, I know... I'm the worst kind of person. I go to a forum just chalked full of people asking the exact same question over and over again... I skim over it... quickly panic and give up... and ask the same darn question again. Sorry. I'm terrible. Please be gentle. I'll do my best to be specific and as concise as possible.

 

My girlfriend and I have been geocaching for a few weeks. We already love it. She's already made a "geocaching" kit... we've done more walking/hiking in the past few weeks than we've done in the entire 2 years we've been together. It's a blast. We're hooked.

 

I've been just using my iPhone 4 and the pretty solid geocaching app. I actually love it. Our workflow is pretty simple (amateur?) right now. We go on geocaching.com ... scout out some interesting areas (on the website you can pull up a map of EVERYWHERE and just see where geocaches are hidden) ... then once we figure out where we'd like to go geocaching, we just drive to the area and park. The handy iphone app lets you search for geocaches in your immediate proximity... and boom... we're geocaching. Super simple and user-friendly for finding caches, routing to caches using the built-in map (or the iphone's map application)... super simple to pull up recent logs, photos and hints if necessary. Super simple to post your log, deal with any trackables, etc. Excellent app.

 

That said, it didn't take us long to discover the...

Obvious problems:

 

#1 - the iPhone GPS is already driving me nuts. It was all fine-and-dandy when we were searching for caches around the city of Seattle... but as soon as we tried hiking into the woods, it started laughing at me. The GPS is pretty inaccurate. It bounces all over the place. Says i'm a foot away, then 5 feet away then 10 then 100 then 5... UGH!! Luckily we've had great success in spite of this, but it's enough of a frustration that It's starting to damper on the fun. Are standalone devices THAT much better?

 

#2 - Battery life is trash. My phone usually dies after about 5 hours (mainly because I'm playing with the app non-stop). We're thinking of getting some battery-life extension device. I imagine a standalone GPS would be a lot better for this.

 

...

 

OK I can probably just stop right there. Those two issues are a big enough pain in the tush that I think it's safe to say we are in the market for a standalone device. Here's my confusion though...

How does the workflow change?: I have no idea which GPS device to buy or how i'll end up using it. Like I said, I really enjoy the iPhone app. It's fantastic. I am under the assumption that a GPS device can not replace that experience (ability to easily find caches, post pictures, log trackables, comment on the cache, etc). So am I basically just looking for a device to use in CONJUNCTION with the iphone? I've never owned a standalone. How should I expect this to work? Will I be pulling finding/pulling up the caches with my iphone... then looking at the GPS coordinates at the top of the screen... and manually punching them into my standalone GPS to get accurate readings?... or is there something more I should be looking at?

 

My girlfriend's aunt said she'd give us her old handheld GPS that she has no use for. It's a "Magellan Triton 400". Will that be sufficient? We honestly don't mind spending money on a nice handheld device... we're just not sure what we'd be paying for. Do some of them incorporate "geocaching" so well that it would potentially replace our iphone and change our workflow entirely?... or do I just keep using the iphone and simply need a device (like her Aunt's Triton 400) to manually punch in coordinates and help us when we're confused in the woods?

 

Any advice/insight would be very appreciated. I realize I could probably get these answers from looking at the forum, but the posts I was finding seemed to be from folks who had neither an iphone 4 OR a GPS and were looking for the pros and cons of each. I already understand the pros and cons of the iphone 4... just not sure where to go from here.

Well, try getting your hands on an HTC Kaiser. Then get the app "PocketDrake" (pocketdrake.cz) That has all the features, and DOESN"T NEED 3-G, 4-G, WiFi, or ANYTHING other than a GPS signal (use an external reciever...gps loves battery) just make sure to download your PQ's and GPX files before you head off. Its like looking at geocaching.com!