Apple iPad in Disco
- Thread starter DiscoNomad
- Start date
chris snell said:
Okay grampa...I'll tape a map to the front of my iPad and hang a compass from my nose. Haha. Too bad I missed you in SA man. Would have been cool to hang out. I hear the D90 is looking great!
p m said:
I could go dig him up if Dan can use his super detective skills to find him. I think he is somewhere in the New Orleans area.
More = better? Not necessarily, but BETTER ALWAYS = better.
Better camera - I didn't say higher megapixel, I said BETTER, as in, it takes better pictures. As a parent, this is something I care about. Some of the other smartphones have 7 megapixel cameras compared to the iPhones 5 megapixel camera, but they don't take better pictures. Agreed that more does not necessarily mean better.
Apps - if Apple DIDN'T curate their app store, they'd have a MILLION apps, and most of them would be fart and boob apps, or just simply junk that nobody would want. They may not refund your money, but typically they don't have to because if an app is entirely useless, they don't approve it. I DO think they've been a little overbearing with it, and have taken some advantage of developers, but they're easing up on that. Like I said, they ain't perfect, but they're damned good. There are many, many absolutely outstanding apps for the platform. They deliberately sacrificed more for better. The result is more AND better.
Storage - I've never needed mini or microSD cards for my iPhone - it has 32GB onboard, and I've NEVER filled it up. iTunes makes it easy to manage your music, apps, videos, etc so that you can "rotate your lineup" so to speak, if you feel you need to, but again, I never have, despite having a LOT of music, songs, pics, and apps on there, including a 1GB navigation app. I feel like you're trying to use the "more=better" thing here yourself. I don't NEED more storage, and I REALLY don't want to cart around a bunch of different SD cards with different crap and have to plug them in and navigate to them in order to use the contents.
Goose - yes, I am a little iPhone biased, they've always blown me away and I haven't used another phone that in my mind is as good. The Android OS is pretty good, but the UI just feels clunky to me, and none of the other hardware out there comes close to me in terms of design and feel. I'm not bashing on Droid... Android is fine, and in many ways very, very good. I just happen to like iPhones better. ...and the video chat feature is really nice, actually, I can use it with my parents, and they can see their grandson very quickly and easily. ...not that it's by any means a feature unique to iPhones - the concept has been around in many iterations for some time, though not so much in the US.
Chris - I can navigate the old fashioned way, and do practice it once or twice a year to keep up. I think you misread what I meant though, having topo maps on your phone helps you with terrain association, that was my point. ...and its more likely that you're going to look at it often than with a paper topo map, giving you more experience reading topo.
Better camera - I didn't say higher megapixel, I said BETTER, as in, it takes better pictures. As a parent, this is something I care about. Some of the other smartphones have 7 megapixel cameras compared to the iPhones 5 megapixel camera, but they don't take better pictures. Agreed that more does not necessarily mean better.
Apps - if Apple DIDN'T curate their app store, they'd have a MILLION apps, and most of them would be fart and boob apps, or just simply junk that nobody would want. They may not refund your money, but typically they don't have to because if an app is entirely useless, they don't approve it. I DO think they've been a little overbearing with it, and have taken some advantage of developers, but they're easing up on that. Like I said, they ain't perfect, but they're damned good. There are many, many absolutely outstanding apps for the platform. They deliberately sacrificed more for better. The result is more AND better.
Storage - I've never needed mini or microSD cards for my iPhone - it has 32GB onboard, and I've NEVER filled it up. iTunes makes it easy to manage your music, apps, videos, etc so that you can "rotate your lineup" so to speak, if you feel you need to, but again, I never have, despite having a LOT of music, songs, pics, and apps on there, including a 1GB navigation app. I feel like you're trying to use the "more=better" thing here yourself. I don't NEED more storage, and I REALLY don't want to cart around a bunch of different SD cards with different crap and have to plug them in and navigate to them in order to use the contents.
Goose - yes, I am a little iPhone biased, they've always blown me away and I haven't used another phone that in my mind is as good. The Android OS is pretty good, but the UI just feels clunky to me, and none of the other hardware out there comes close to me in terms of design and feel. I'm not bashing on Droid... Android is fine, and in many ways very, very good. I just happen to like iPhones better. ...and the video chat feature is really nice, actually, I can use it with my parents, and they can see their grandson very quickly and easily. ...not that it's by any means a feature unique to iPhones - the concept has been around in many iterations for some time, though not so much in the US.
Chris - I can navigate the old fashioned way, and do practice it once or twice a year to keep up. I think you misread what I meant though, having topo maps on your phone helps you with terrain association, that was my point. ...and its more likely that you're going to look at it often than with a paper topo map, giving you more experience reading topo.
knewsom said:
That's weird... on both the 3G and the 4, we go out of service on a regular basis. In fact, one of the main reasons I got my Ham license is so I can get someone on the line during the times when I go camping and fishing and off-roading. My Blackberry wasn't any better on ATT. Verizon was always better, even when out in one of N. America's least populated areas (as calculated by population per square mile) I was able to call home on my old Verizon phone.
Last week I drove to Central Oregon. No service for about 1/4 of the 150 miles. When I go from Bend -- the 3rd largest city in Oregon -- south just 30 minutes, I'm out of service again. I routinely drive the back roads in flat or hilly terrain and have absolutely no service.
About the iPad mount:
What app are you running for the maps? So you can use the iPad GPS, without 3G, without Data, and still have the maps up? ...me... ...want...
Actually, I think I'm still leaning to get a netbook when it comes to getting a carputer.
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For what its worth, I have a Palm Pixi which sucks. Feel free to make fun of me for it.
All smartphones are fake Iphones IMO.
All smartphones are fake Iphones IMO.
knewsom said:
A moving topo map with a little position icon is not helping you with terrain association. It only trains you to look at your device to determine where you are. Terrain association is the ability to find yourself without the aid of a GPS-provided position. You are not getting that with the iPad approach. It's doing the work for you and you're not learning anything.
Not that this is news to anyone here but I think you have no idea what you are talking about.
Okay sounds like I need to rewrite this write up on DiscoNomad. When I wrote it, it was super late and I was just excited to have the iPad and the mount finished so I didn't go to much into the detail.
When I get home tonight I will post screen shots of my solution so its clear what this thing can and can't do. I'm telling you though, unless you just flat out want to hate on the iPad this is undeniably a good tool for navigation and in car information delivery. I'll do my best to show off its virtues tonight.
Mostly I just like a reason to play with it.
Later
When I get home tonight I will post screen shots of my solution so its clear what this thing can and can't do. I'm telling you though, unless you just flat out want to hate on the iPad this is undeniably a good tool for navigation and in car information delivery. I'll do my best to show off its virtues tonight.
Mostly I just like a reason to play with it.
Later
chris snell said:
Oh lord... Again, to be clear, my point was that correlating topo imagery and numbers with physical landscape while already knowing your position can only help familiarize one with what terrain looks like in topo form, not the opposite. ...certainly not laying any claim to it helping you find your location on a paper map with no GPS, other than said familiarization. It won't help you learn to line up landmarks, or triangulate your position, or take compass bearings, but it might help you know what a mountain looks like on a map, or a valley, or a plateau, that was it.I understand that the GPS does the work for you and finds your position. That is the intended purpose of the device. Yes, it is important to know how to do that without a GPS.
I just crawled all over southwestern Colorado and didn't need anything but a couple paper maps. I have a GPS but I just use it for elevation, speed, and distance since my speedo & tach are about 8% off. I could always check my GPS coordinates against the paper map if I was lost but I don't get lost.
Okay I finished my update outlining the apps I have found to work very well for this application. I apologize in advance for all the hi-res images but I figured people want native res screen shots to get an idea of interface size. Those of you that had read the original article which mostly talks about the mount, just skip down to the UPDATE area.
Check it out at:
http://disconomad.com/DiscoNomad/Blog/Entries/2010/8/4_UPDATED__Apple_iPad_in_a_Car.html
Check it out at:
http://disconomad.com/DiscoNomad/Blog/Entries/2010/8/4_UPDATED__Apple_iPad_in_a_Car.html
Christian, you may find this article interesting:
http://www.soundmancaraudio.com/how-to/category/ipad-installation
Basically, this guy has a method to get digital audio out of the iPad and through a high-end DAC and then into the stereo amp. Supposed to get you higher-quality sound.
http://www.soundmancaraudio.com/how-to/category/ipad-installation
Basically, this guy has a method to get digital audio out of the iPad and through a high-end DAC and then into the stereo amp. Supposed to get you higher-quality sound.