Groundspeak Inc.

During December and January, The Unofficial Apple Weblog is soliciting your nominations and votes for the best products for Mac, iPhone/iPod touch, and iPad. We'll start with nominations in a category, and then tally your votes for the top-nominated products a few days later. The winner in each category receives the highly-coveted title of TUAW Best of 2011. Today's category for nominations in the TUAW Best of 2011 awards is iPhone navigation apps. These are the apps that give you turn-by-turn directions as you make your way around town, and they've been getting better as time goes by. Perhaps you are a fan of the free crowdsourced nab app Waze, which has a 4 out of 5 star rating on the App Store with over 29,000 user reviews. Or maybe you love the TomTom U.S.A. app ($39.99) with its ability to guide you with celebrity voices (Homer Simpson, anyone?). GPS by TeleNav is another popular and free navigation app, and there's always the MotionX GPS Drive app ($0.99, with one year of Voice Guidance for $9.99). Maybe you're a geocacher who doesn't care about getting from point A to point B, but you do want to find all of the caches in your area with the official Geocaching app ($9.99). And then there's always Navigon, with a host of features like in-app purchases of Zagat information. TUAW wants to hear from you -- what's your favorite iPhone navigation app? Leave your nomination in the comments below. Voting will start soon! Nominations close at 11:59 PM ET on December 22, 2011. Read More

Now that the weather is cooling down here in the States, it's time to spend some time outdoors. I love a good hike, and they're made even more enjoyable with a good app by my side. Track distance, brag about your workout or even find a hidden "treasure" during your excursion with these apps. Have fun (all prices are USD). iMapMyHIKE (Free lite version, $1.99 pro) I used iMapMyHIKE all summer. When you start out, launch the app and note your location. As you move, the app tracks your course. It's fun to see where you've traveled as well as build a real-time map back to your starting point, should you get confused. Of course, that's just the beginning. You can share your hiking stats with friends (like distance travelled, pace and so on), spot hiking companions running the app on a map and log your data to keep track of your outdoor workouts. It's a lot of fun and was a good companion this summer. Here's a two-for-one deal. BoxFinder and Geocaching are apps for letterboxing and geocaching, two similar hunt-and-find games that can enhance any hike. Geocaching is the practice of finding small boxes (often Tupperware containers) that have been hidden at specific geographic coordinates around the world. Each typically contains a log book and other goodies. Letterboxing is similar, but directed at kids. Upon finding a letterbox, the "hunter" marks its logbook with his signature "stamp," while placing the box's stamp in her own log book. Both apps make the adventures much easier and enjoyable. Since the iPhone 4 is a GPS receiver, finding that box is quite easy. Use the coordinates, description and virtual logs left by other "players" to find just what you're looking for. Both apps offer to find boxes within your area and, in my experience, excel at directing you right to them. If you're interested in either of these pastimes, grab these apps. They truly enhance the experience. When I was a Boy Scout, I loved making casts of animal tracks we found in the woods. Today my own kids like finding them, too, but I'm out of practice and can't identify them as reliably as I used to. Fortunately, MyNature Animal Tracks is here to help. This great little app features a huge database of animal tracks, both hind and forepaws. When you come across a track, perform a quick search to Read More

Although I'm much more likely to spend a lovely summer day with my butt glued to the chair working on a new TUAW post, I do enjoy the sport/hobby/game of geocaching. If you're not familiar with the term, geocaching is defined as "a global treasure hunting game where participants locate hidden physical containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share their experience online." When I first started geocaching, smartphones didn't exist so I'd print out a map, grab my Garmin GPS, and head out to the field. For the last few years, there has been a boom in iPhone apps for geocaching. Here are five apps to help you enjoy finding those hidden caches. GroundSpeak is the company that runs the Geocaching.com website, the world's largest repository of geocache location information with over 1,450,000 active caches listed. As a for-profit organization, Groundspeak has a vested interest in getting new members into the hobby. The app is a way to get you hooked on geocaching by letting you find three geocaches near your current location, provide you with the requisite coordinates, hints, and description, and help you navigate to the cache. A bonus is that the app alerts you when you're getting close to the cache location by vibrating and making a sound. It's a wonderful and free app for deciding whether or not geocaching captures your attention. If that free intro got you hooked, you may want to graduate to a Geocaching.com premium account so that you get access to some special caches and features that aren't open to the general public. The official Geocaching app was the first caching app for the iPhone, and it has improved over the years to become the tool for finding and reporting caches. The feature set is incredible. Over a 3G data connection you can pick up information about any of the caches worldwide, log your finds, save listings for offline use (helpful in backcountry caching), navigate to caches with a compass arrow, browse photo galleries and cache attributes, and more. You'll even know if you've been to a cache before or if a cache is currently inactive. Since I've had this app, I haven't had to print out maps and I sold my old Garmin GPS. The app and iPhone work great together, although you'll probably want to have an external battery pack on hand while caching. OpenCaching is a user-powered caching community started Read More

Posted 06/23/2011 at 2:00pm | by Susie Ochs Some people venture into the outdoors to “unplug.” To leave technology behind…to stop and smell the roses, if you will. And if that’s your thing, that’s great. But some of us are allergic to roses and break out in hives if you try to pry our gadgets out of our hands for a minute, let alone for a whole weekend in the woods. That said, we’re not suggesting that you bring an iMac camping, and thanks to the power of iPhones and iPads, even toting a MacBook Air seems like overkill. With the right case, some portable power, and some other goodies, you and your iDevice along can have a blast in the great outdoors. Geocaching will help you identify nearby geocaches and then lead you right to them. See that blue box in the picture? That represents a geocache, which is a hidden outdoor treasure you find by locating its GPS coordinates. This used to require a dedicated GPS device (see our how-to), but now you can do it with your iPhone. The gold standard is a $9.99 app called Geocaching, which works on iPhone 3G, 3GS, and 4…and technically iPod touches too, although they need a Wi-Fi hotspot, which aren’t exactly prevalent in the woods. The app integrates with the granddaddy of geocaching websites, Geocaching.com, and lets you search for a geocache nearby or by address. Then the fun, easy-to-use mapping feature helps lead you to it, and you can post a log that you found it from within the app, as well as on a paper log book traditionally kept in the geocache itself. Along with the log, you’ll typically find trinkets or toys—keep one as a souvenir and add a new one you brought from home. It’s the coolest thing to happen to hiking since trekking poles. When you take along your iPad or iPhone and a field guide app to help you identify the flora and fauna you encounter, you’ll bask in the glory of nature while learning something too. Our absolute favorites are the universal apps from the Audubon Society. Audubon Guides ($29.99) is the all-in-one, containing Audubon Birds (available separately for $14.99), Audubon Mammals ($9.99), Audubon Trees ($9.99), and Audubon Wildflowers ($9.99). Audubon Butterflies is another great app for $9.99. Audubon Guides can keep a list of every critter, flower, and tree you encounter on your Read More

Posted 05/06/2011 at 10:00am | by Florence Ion Geocaching, a treasure hunting game where you use a GPS to hide and seek containers of "treasures", is making a comeback and there are plenty of apps out there to help you get started. Now that the sun is coming out and the snow is melting away, put on your explorer gear and get to hunting for buried treasure! Use the Anquet Maps to plan out your geocaching adventure and map out your route, then print or transfer it to an iPhone (app is sold separately). You can also purchase and download specialist maps for other, non-geocaching adventures. What is Geocaching your ask? Well, here's a nice, free introductory app to get your started. This app will let you access three "treasure boxes" near your current location, give you descriptions and things and let you know how tough (or not) it might be to get there. Worried about the terrain out there? Pack the appropriate shoes (and walking sticks) for where you're heading to go geocaching with the offline topography maps apps, now totally free. You'll need Wi-Fi before you leave your home to download the entire map, but then once you get to your destination you can just bring it up and use it to find your way around. Tags: Read More

Posted 10/04/2010 at 12:36pm | by Andrew Hayward Each new iPhone has offered fresh and fantastical ways to improve your daily life, but the epic tag-team of the iPhone 4 and iOS 4 deliver the greatest set of tools and features to date. With the introduction of FaceTime video calls, multitasking, and the high resolution Retina display, the iPhone 4 has moved even further away from being just a powerful phone and web-surfing device. Now more than ever, the iPhone is a true lifestyle-enhancing accessory. Between the built-in features and the hundreds of thousands of options in the App Store, not to mention a few key accessories, the iPhone 4 can be figuratively formed and changed to fit your daily needs, whether you’re planning your daily commute, knocking out items on your to-do list, or simply looking to try a new restaurant. With this wide-ranging versatility in mind, we’ve come up with 40 ways in which the iPhone 4 can improve--or help you break free from--your daily routine, whether you’re at home or work, or out enjoying the world around you. Wake up with the iPhone and your day will be "phenomenal. Magical." Standalone alarm clocks are a thing of the past! You can use the built-in Clock app on your iPhone to set multiple alarms and customize them to your needs and preferences. You can choose the sound (including any custom ringtone) and label the alarm, as well as decide whether you’ll be able to tap the screen for snooze and if the alarm should repeat on the same day each week. Nobody likes waking up, but at least you can do it on your own terms. Depending on where you call home, each new day can bring a meteorological surprise, so stepping outside without a quick check of the impending weather can yield painful results. The iPhone has a simple, built-in Weather app that offers localized results, but for a more in-depth forecast, you can grab The Weather Channel app (free, pictured), WeatherBug (free), or one of several regional-focused options. Don’t leave home without it! If you rely on public transit to get to and from work each weekday, you know the uncertain wait for trains and buses can be soul-draining. No more! Many transit systems have apps that offer time estimates on buses and/or trains, like Buster ($0.99, pictured) for Chicago or MuniApp 2 ($0.99) and BART Live Read More

Although I don't get a chance to do as much geocaching as I'd like to, I still check the Geocaching.com cache maps on occasion to see what's new in the area. Usually, I do this by checking with the US$9.99 Geocaching app, but sometimes I find myself logging into the Geocaching.com website to do my searching. Carlos Fonseca has developed a nice Safari extension that smooths out the rough edges on the Geocaching.com site. Better Geocaching, as the extension is called, adds two features when you're visiting Geocaching.com. First, a click on the View Map link immediately displays a fullscreen map instead of the usual partial page map. The second feature adds a Tweet This button near the cache code on the description page, so you can share your find with friends. The extension is also supposed to revert the map back to normal view by clicking a Better Geocaching button, but no matter how hard I looked, I couldn't find that button. Fortunately, the Safari Extensions Gallery includes links to developer pages, so I quickly determined that that button was simply a small arrow in the upper right corner of the fullscreen map. The extension adds nothing to your toolbar and works silently behind the scenes. If you're a geocacher who uses Safari, you'll definitely want to head out to the Safari Extensions Gallery and install Better Geocaching. Read More

As a longtime fan of the pastime of geocaching, I've been following the evolution of the official Groundspeak Geocaching app (US$9.99) since the painful early days. With the release of Geocaching version 4.0 yesterday, it appears that Groundspeak has raised the bar with a new design and additional features. If you're not familiar with geocaching, it's a location-based hobby where you seek caches (usually small containers with a logbook and goodies inside) based on hints, latitude and longitude coordinates, and a keen eye. You can also hide caches for others to find. GroundSpeak has a free Geocaching Intro app available if you're interested in learning about the hobby but don't want to make the $10 investment in the full app. So what's new in Geocaching v.4? A lot. The user interface has been redesigned to make it much more streamlined. I found that actions that formerly took a number of screen taps are now usually no more than one or two taps away. Although I'm not fond of long lists of features, there's no other way to show all of the additions and improvements: -- Google Maps integration (now have choice of Google Maps, Bing, or OpenStreetMap) -- Ability to take photos and submit them with geocache logs -- Ability to submit logs for trackable items such as geocoins and travel bugs -- A logs tab with displays of pending and sent logs -- Better reliability downloading pocket queries -- Online / offline indicator -- GPS acquisition status and location display -- Listen to iPod app during caching -- Support for home location (specified in geocaching.com user profile) -- Notepad for every geocache listing -- View any list of caches on map -- View trackables inventory Geocaching 4 has not been specifically rewritten for iOS 4 or the iPhone 4, so if you want to see the map graphics in all of their glory on your Retina Display, you're out of luck. A few screenshots of the revised app are included in the gallery below. Read More

When it's warmer than the current 12°F here in Denver or I'm on a trip somewhere, I love to go geocaching. If you're not familiar with the pastime, geocaching involves using a GPS receiver to find hidden caches that can contain logbooks, "prizes," or even clues to other caches. To find out where a cache is hidden, you need to have an account with Geocaching.com and then search by city or location to see what's near you. The rest is up to your ability to find the cache based on the latitude and longitude provided, as well as clues that may have been supplied by the person who hid the cache, or by other people who have found the cache before you. The company that popularized geocaching is Groundspeak, and they've just released version 3.0 of their self-named Geocaching app [US$9.99, iTunes Link]. Like a fine wine, this app is definitely getting better with age. Groundspeak added a pile of new features to the app, including the ability to view geocache photo galleries, rotate maps to match your heading (iPhone 3GS only), and view geocaching.com web pages without leaving the app. One feature I like is the ability to save maps and photos for offline use. Sometimes when I'm geocaching in areas that don't have good cell phone service, I've felt that it would be nice to just shut the phone feature off. Now I can do that by searching for sites near a location, and then saving the information on my iPhone for future reference. For geocachers who purchased earlier versions of the app, Geocaching 3.0 is a free upgrade. I highly recommend getting the update, and remember to restart your iPhone after installing the app. Read More

By Rene Ritchie, Saturday, Sep 19, 2009 | Every week a few of us from team TiPb, bloggers and forum crew alike, will bring you our current favorite, funnest, most useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they’re iPhone (or iPod touch) related, they’re fair game. So who’s on deck this week and what are our picks? Find out after the break! If you are like me, the standard Apple ringtones just don’t cut it. I like to customize my ringer to a tone that only I will have. Ringtones allows you create a ringtones from any song that you have on your iPhone. While it is currently only limited to the start of the song, there are advanced features in the works. [Free - Requires Jailbreak] Fans of the show absolutly need to purchase this game. Great graphics, great controls, great voice acting, original story, etc. It’s all there and it’s very polished. Buy it now. I’m slightly addicted to Twitter apps and my new client of choice is Echofon Pro (formerly known as TwitterFon Pro). Echofon has a very intuitive interface, allows multiple accounts, and now supports push notification for mentions and direct messages. Firefox users can also sync unread messages over the air with Echofon for Firefox – very cool! I’m not really a fan of the new name, but I’m definitely a fan of the app! [$4.99 - iTunes link] Ahoy! thar scallywags! War’s my treasure? Me know tis’ har somewhar! Okay so maybe not quite treasure hunting, but it’s second best – Geocaching. I had been a little wary of purchasing the app as it’s $9.99 but the 4.5/5 rating finally convinced me. It’s SO worth it! It nearly takes the fun out of of looking up all your caches before you go out, entering all the coordinates and attempting to go in order…. If you are a geocacher, then this is a MUST add to your Geocaching tools. The only thing I didn’t quite like, was using this app for Micros, you iPhone’s GPS doesn’t update that quickly while walking in circles, so it gets frustrating if there aren’t any hints. For those of you that have no idea what I am talking about, check out the Geocaching Intro app, it’s Free. [$9.99 - iTunes link] or [Free Read More