Software review : Mapopolis for Microsoft Smartphone, part 2 of 2 - GPS functionalities
Throw away your car navigation system, and throw away your PDA! Get Microsoft Smarpthone (and Bluetooth GPS receiver) and you get all in one: cell phone, PDA and car navigation system. Version of this page: 2.
What do you need to use car navigation to the full? Well, when you are driving you usually donīt have time to stop once in a while to look at street names, and sometimes street names are not even visible. So if you really want to have automatic car navigation - with route showing, automatic showing of your current position on the map, showing direction of the movement and accustic (speech synthesis) and visual (where and how to turn) directions - then you have to buy GPS receiver. Nowadays cable based receivers are limited in compatibility to one device (it is nonsense to buy cable based GPS receiver - because your next phone/PDA will most certainly not be compatible with it) and are little bit backward technologically. So that what you really need is a Bluetooth GPS receiver - which can be purchased in price range between 100 and 300 USD. In our test we used Bluetooth GPS receiver from Fortuna, that is also sold by Belkin, under Belkin brand. As you can see on the following picture:
... Bluetooth GPS receivers nowadays are not only very sensible (catch GPS signal easily - see remarks about it below) but also are very small - so small that you can carry them in the pocket or on the belt clip (included in the kit) - in case you are in need of pedestrial GPS navigation...
OK, letīs come straight to the point: GPS based car navigation. First step that you need to do is to activate Bluetooth in your smarpthone - set it to "Discoverable" mode.
After your Bluetooth GPS receiver is bonded Bluetooth-wise with Microsoft smartphone (pin code of GPS Bluetooth receivers is usally "0000"), you need to: activate Bluetooth serial port (in "Configurations" menu, see also user manual of Mapopolis for Smartphone if you are not sure), and then you have to specify in GPS settings in mapopolis wich port you will be using. Then the last step is to go to right-soft-key menu and "Start GPS" by selectiong proper position.
How it works, technically? Well, communication between GPS receiver and smartphone is one-directional - GPS reciever is simply sending stream of data in NMEA format, and smartphone just reads it. There is no bi-directional communication, or some controling of GPS receiver by smartphone. You can think of it as "streaming" of location data (longitude, latitude) from GPS receiver to smarpthone. This is good because GPS application (here Mapopolis) donīt need to go into details of Bluetooth profiles, etc, which are a mess, by the way. From the point of view of GPS application, one thing that such application does is simply reading the stream of location data from receiver - simple, isnīt it?
Bluetooth GPS receiver usually needs 30 seconds up to several minutes to get a "fix", what means: so that it has enough GPS sattelites in site (2 is too little, 4 is OK, more is better; usually up to 10 sattelites are possible - to be visible by GPS receiver at once). Here you can see various states of the GPS receiver:
... and as you can guess only "green" is usable, when GPS is running (streaming location to your smarpthone over serial port over Bluetooth) and when it got a fix (the sattelite lamp in your GPS receiver must be green).
Generally we recommend to "Start GPS" in Mapopolis only after you get a fix of location - the sattelite lamp is green.
Once GPS is running you see your location as blue circle with an arrow and to calculate route you need to go on the map to the location where you want to go, and then select in menu of the left soft-key the "Route To Here" position:
Once the route is calculate the Mapopolis is giving you directions, both visual:
... and accoustic - by spoken text that gives you directions without the need for you to look at the screen of smartphone. In this way you can concentrate on driving and even you donīt have to look at the display.
However if you fancy looking at the display you can see overview of the whole route, with target market by "X" in a circle and your current location marked by blue circle with an arrow:
... and you can even zoom in and zoom out the map so that you can look ahead and be better prepared for the route - so that you will not miss some turn, or so...
The Mapopolis program has many settings related to GPS:
... and many features related to GPS:
Interestingly also "general settings" dialog has 2 settings related to GPS: possibility to switch on "GPS trail" - so that you can track your way, and possibility to auto-start GPS.
Conclusions: Mapopolis program in combination with Bluetooth GPS receiver and Microsoft Smartphone constitues very good car navigation system that will find a route for you and give you directions how to drive to get to the target in the fastest or shortest possible way. Of course Mapopolis is not perfect, it once told us to take a turn to the street that in reality was closed for car traffic (see photo below)! Apparently map for Mapopolis for this particular city is not up to dat.... So in the end, when driving your care with help of Mapopolis donīt rely blindly on it, but drive safely and take your own decisions... treat Mapopolis as an adviser, not as your commander, that you have to blindly follow...
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