Hello Paul and Lynne, This is just to note that the nearest cross street feature Paul mentions has been requested of the developers of Ariadne GPS. They might be able to add that feature, but my understanding is that there are a couple of reasons for the limitations. The first is that they are using Google Street Maps for their map data. This allows them to provide a working app for people anywhere in the world, and not those living in countries where more detailed Navteq map coverage exists. But the Google maps API does not provide the information that would be needed to calculate the nearest cross street, whether that street is ahead or behind you, or its distance. The Google Maps API query only allow for: address number, street name, city, zip code, area, state, country, and some other functions, but not intersection information.
Geoff Waaler will remember the i-map-u app that was available from 2008 until early 2011. That app would give the nearest intersection, but only for locations in the U.S. That was largely because that level of detail was only available in the U.S. at the time. I recall that in a Google search back in 2009 I found references to someone's having implemented a nearest intersection algorithm in one of the large, GPS databases for the U.S., and I think that's what i-map-u used. The other factor is that the absolute GPS positional accuracy of the iPhone is probably not good enough to give such precise distance information in general cases, which may be why apps haven't picked this up. It would be great if we did have these features, and if Sendero did come out with a new app that could do this, but I suspect it will work best in the more populated areas of the U.S., Canada, and Europe. I'd be interested in hearing from Trekker users elsewhere in the world (for example, Austral ia) about how well this performed. I think that the Where To? app is able to calculate and update distances to your destination because it only has to look up the GPS coordinates of a fixed number of POI locations and use your current GPS location. That information is easily retrieved, but I don't think there's a comparable database of intersection coordinates in easy to use format. Just my thoughts. YMMV. Cheers, Esther On Jun 20, 2012, at 4:50 AM, Mrs. Lynnette Annabel Smith wrote: > Hello Paul > > Assuming that Sendero GPS is an iPhone app, can't you run them both together > so that you get the functionality of each?> Or would they conflict? > > Lynne > > > On 20 Jun 2012, at 15:20, Paul Hopewell <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hello, > I have just tried this app on my iPhone 3GS. It has some nice features but I > feel it has one major omission. The nice features are: > - the where am I function tells you which house number you are near to. Great > if you are looking for a specific house. > - the favourites function could be very useful for navigating in an open > space. YOu could set a favourite at the entrance to a park and then use the > app to get back to that favourite. The app will tell you the distance and > clock bearing of the favourite. > > The big omission is the lack of a "nearest cross street" function similar to > that in Sendero GPS. I would very much like to press a nearest cross street > button and hear something like "Pine Road fifty yards east of Park road". > Alas even Sendero GPS will only say "Pine road near Park road". WIth Ariadne > GPS I have to go a little distance down a side street I am about to cross to > get the "where am I" function to recognise that I am on the side street. > > Has anyone found a way round the lack of a "nearest cross street" function? > > Paul Hopewell <--- Mac Access At Mac Access Dot Net ---> To reply to this post, please address your message to [email protected] You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Mac-Access forum at either the list's own dedicated web archive: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/mac-access/index.html> or at the public Mail Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/>. Subscribe to the list's RSS feed from: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml> The Mac-Access mailing list is guaranteed malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and worm-free! Please remember to update your membership options periodically by visiting the list website at: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/mac-access/options/>
