Database Users

[Q] How to use GPS with no internet connection?

Hi, What do I need for my blackstone in order to use any (suggestions, which is better, would be a great help) GPS sowtware without internet connection. I am not an expert in this, but I know that GPS devices (like tom tom or similar) use satellite data to show coordinates. How can this be done on my touch hd? As only preinstalled program is google maps that require internet connection.
I don't have unlimited data plan, so this is extremely expensive for me, but I am a fan of geocatching, so I need GPS.
Please help me with description of how this GPS works and what soft should I use?
Thanks

There are lots of good Navigation/GPS Apps around that read standalone maps from your SDCard.
Take your pick.
Some info here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=566657

bethybabes69 said:
There are lots of good Navigation/GPS Apps around that read standalone maps from your SDCard.
Take your pick.
Some info here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=566657
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, thank for the info, but....
I installed TT7 with my region maps, but I still seem not to receive any GPS signal - my phone seems not to catch any satellite signal - is this a setting issue?

in tomtom7, just access the gps settings and set them to "internal gps receiver", then it should work immediately, given that in your very location you have gps coverage.

I've found that my Touch HD's GPS capabilities work great when I'm at home testing them, then fails to locate any satellites when I'm lost! lol
Not exactly true - but has got me before!
I would suggest that you try your GPS in various locations just to make sure that the building you live / work in, or the weather isn't blocking the signal that your phones GPS listens for...
I used TomTom for ages without issue, it can be copied directly from a memory card on a TomTom compatible device usually.
Recently my Dad bought iGo8 with the entire world maps installed, so I pinched that and run it straight off my storage card with just a few teething problems. This is the best GPS / SatNav on my phone so far...

+1 for iGO8
Best GPS software by far for me. This is the only and single reason why I haven't bought an Android phone yet.
If they would have created the same skinable thing for a HTC Desire etc the HD would be history.
If I were you.
1) disable a-gps, causes roaming costs and most gps application freak out on it (download advanced config tool and disable it that way)
Lock, no lock, lock, ... mostly caused by agps (assisted-gps). Assisted means that it also gets data from the cell-tower which abroad can cost you loads of money (and yes I had that once)
If you use HTC quick gps you will probably get a lock in seconds if you are outside so no need for assisted.
2) install the gps mod driver , this one 'thinks' ahead by calculating points that it gets from the GPS receiver. If you don't feel confident about this one skip it but read the thread and keep it in the back of your head.
3) buy iGO8 and install the gurjon skin which makes iGO look fantastic and makes it fully configurable the way you want it.
4) enjoy a fantastic GPS system

Recommended (free?) Sat Nav

Hi all,
Now im part of the 'gang' I was wondering what the recommended Sat Nav with voice navigation was on Android for the HTC Desire HD? I come from Nokia land where we have Ovi Maps which is very good and free.
What alternatives do I have over here on Android, ideally free, that is good and has voice navigation and good UK postcode search?
Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

Google Maps with voice, all you need my friend

Forgot to add, ideally one where you can save maps, ie, for traveling without having to use roaming?
Thanks

Isn't a free one where maps are stored. To be honest co pilot probably the best if you want no data charges but Google map rubs rings around everything
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App

Hi,
Yes, just tried Maps, shame about the voice!
I'd rather be able to download maps then I dont have to worry about roaming.
Do you know if you are able to, for example, set your route at the hotel/house and let it calculate the route, say on wifi, and then leave in the car and turn roaming off?
That said, i'd consider paying a small fee if I were able to access offline maps in advance.
Thanks again.

gavin watson said:
Hi,
Yes, just tried Maps, shame about the voice!
I'd rather be able to download maps then I dont have to worry about roaming.
Do you know if you are able to, for example, set your route at the hotel/house and let it calculate the route, say on wifi, and then leave in the car and turn roaming off?
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Click to collapse
Yes you can do this with Maps but the problem is if you take a wrong turn somewhere then it can't recalculate the route for you without a data connection. Not ideal really.
If you want to do it though then simply calculate your route with wifi or 3G enabled then press your home button to continue using your phone, turn off your data connection then pull Maps back up again - it will still be running and will the just use GPS as you drive around... provided you don't take that wrong turn we spoke about earlier
Sent from my X10i using XDA App

Waze is much better than Google maps. No offline navigating yet, but they plan on implementing that too. And the good thing is it has crowdsourced traffic info (jams/hazards/speed cams etc), and turn by turn voice guided navigation. It's fun!

how does gps work on da phone

oi guys ive had a look at a few of those suggested threads about gps and yeah nah they dont really answer my question so feel free to link me to a thread if it answers my question
ok so, what the go.. the phone has gps.. but it doesnt work like a gps device eg navman, tomtom etc.. or does it? i've tried stock froyo and cyanogenmod using that google car app and then going to navigation, but it just keeps searching for a signal for ever. i dont want to use data cause it costs money and defeats the purpose of having a gps.. that is if the phone gps actually works like a gps device. if not then thats pretty bad advertising. anyways let me know, cheers

Mine gets connected to satelites on few seconds,performs as good as my Tom Tom does,i am using Navigon app&maps.

the latest google maps has offline support so you wouldnt need data...

what??! thats rediculous! i left mine in that navigation mode where it was looking for navigation or something like that and the gps symbol was flashing for like 15 min straight as i drove to work and nothing! is it meant to take that long?
EDIT: ok i opened up maps with wifi and it went through all that first time use crap. and so it was using wifi and gps it looked like and that was working. but then when i disabled wifi none of the maps load. only the maps that i had previously loaded while on wifi. wtf? arent maps installed..????????? therefore it should just load them.. what the #%^% im starting to get really pissed off with how stupid this design is. the maps are there, cause theyre installed, and the gps is there so.............. what the ^%#* is its problem?

your right it will only save maps you have browsed while on wifi...i believe there is a setting that overrides this though...

nolook said:
your right it will only save maps you have browsed while on wifi...i believe there is a setting that overrides this though...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
do you know where this setting is? oh and i got the gps to work ie i got it to find me and all that. i did some reading and with gps on most phones the first time they connect it takes a while cause its gotta do all this satellite scanning and then eventually it goes yep ok hes in this part of the country, lets set him up with these satellites and so from then on it connects with gps a lot faster

First of all: the design is just great, you are the stupid.
How GPS work on dah phone ? well just like any other GPS: it receives signal from a few satellites around and it find your position based on the time laps between the reception of each signal (signal come with a time sync).
Now, how WELL does the Legend's GPS work ? as good as any other GPS: very nice in a car or outdoor, but very badly indoor and if it was unable to find your position for 15 minute I'm pretty sure you were indoor (or maybe outdoor in a big city).
Also on smartphone's GPS the data connection can help the GPS itself by downloading some data which will speed up the localisation by satellite, but this is not mandatory and if you're not connected you will end up being positionned. It will only take a few minutes (less than 15)
Finally about the navigation system (which is a bit different of GPS itself) Google's is fairly different than other software because it doesn't come with maps but it download them as you need them:
pros:
-maps are always up to date
-you don't have to waste 2Gb or more on your microSD to store them
-it's free !
cons:
-requires data connection (unlimited download recommanded)
If you prefer usual navigation software, feel free to use co-pilot or navigon or tomtom or any of the other regular software. But you'll have to pay (or crack) them.

Nashan said:
First of all: the design is just great, you are the stupid.
How GPS work on dah phone ? well just like any other GPS: it receives signal from a few satellites around and it find your position based on the time laps between the reception of each signal (signal come with a time sync).
Now, how WELL does the Legend's GPS work ? as good as any other GPS: very nice in a car or outdoor, but very badly indoor and if it was unable to find your position for 15 minute I'm pretty sure you were indoor (or maybe outdoor in a big city).
Also on smartphone's GPS the data connection can help the GPS itself by downloading some data which will speed up the localisation by satellite, but this is not mandatory and if you're not connected you will end up being positionned. It will only take a few minutes (less than 15)
Finally about the navigation system (which is a bit different of GPS itself) Google's is fairly different than other software because it doesn't come with maps but it download them as you need them:
pros:
-maps are always up to date
-you don't have to waste 2Gb or more on your microSD to store them
-it's free !
cons:
-requires data connection (unlimited download recommanded)
If you prefer usual navigation software, feel free to use co-pilot or navigon or tomtom or any of the other regular software. But you'll have to pay (or crack) them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
whoa whoa whoa hang on now. lets not go throwing the word stupid around especially if you didnt even understand what i meant or you assumed i didnt know how gps works in the first place.
my general question was that it wasnt connecting to gps and the maps werent showing so im thinking you need data for the maps to show even though you have the maps installed, and secondly im thinking something is wrong with my gps or maybe it doesnt work like a normal device navman, tomtom etc because its been half an hour and still no connectivity. then i answered my own question as usual via the internet from other forums i found using google which explained what i said above.
basically with normal gps devices they are already setup with a region.. thingy or whatever it is built into the gps device. this means the first time you connect its actually quite quick because it already has an idea where you are in the world. however with phones, they apparently dont have this so the process of connecting for the first time can range from 3 min, instantly or up to 3 hours like numerous people claimed it had taken for their phones. as for mine it took just over half an hour and now it works fine.
the only question left over now is apparently you can get the maps to show without a data connection through some option change in the settings as someone mentioned a bit earlier.
dont go throwing stupid around mate or assuming anything cause now who looks stupid. besides the design is quite silly since none of this was explained. when they say the phone has gps people (like me) generally go oh wow like those car gps' and expect them to work like that. so when they dont we become a bit skeptical and i was right to do so because look at all this crap ^^^that ive discovered. anyways like i said theres still one stupid thing left about all this which is why data is needed to view maps that are already installed. its like those video games that you install and require you to be on the net to play

You were the one throwing stupid at the design while you still seem to misunderstand how google nav (quit calling it GPS please) works.
Maps are not completely loaded, they're only stored in the cache and that's true only for one scale, and around one place. You can hardly use that to explore the map offline not even mentionning navigating.
The new feature only allow google nav to keep guiding you if you lose connection for a little while. But you can't really use it offline.
I think that design is just awesome, although I have an unlimited data connection. If you don't have that kind of service you should take a look at usual GPS softwares.
And I'm not assuming anything, you asked "how GPS works" not "how google nav works"

Nashan said:
You were the one throwing stupid at the design while you still seem to misunderstand how google nav (quit calling it GPS please) works.
Maps are not completely loaded, they're only stored in the cache and that's true only for one scale, and around one place. You can hardly use that to explore the map offline not even mentionning navigating.
The new feature only allow google nav to keep guiding you if you lose connection for a little while. But you can't really use it offline.
I think that design is just awesome, although I have an unlimited data connection. If you don't have that kind of service you should take a look at usual GPS softwares.
And I'm not assuming anything, you asked "how GPS works" not "how google nav works"
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ugh forget it, i already answered my own question and now you're just being picky and all technical when no one really cares. i think 99% get what i mean so i dont care

GPS is working great. Google Maps is the "problem", more precisely not a real problem but the way it was designed. Unlike other GPS navigation software, the maps are not stored locally but in a cache. The latest version seems to have an offline mode but I didn't tested so I can't say if it's totally offline or not. If you want navigation without using your data connection or WiFi, switch to TomTom, iGO, or similar instead.
That's why Google Maps has only couple of MB and iGO for ex. has over 2 GB with all maps loaded...the difference is the space occupied by the maps.
P.S. And yes, first GPS lock is acquired a little bit later.

Rapier said:
GPS is working great. Google Maps is the "problem", more precisely not a real problem but the way it was designed. Unlike other GPS navigation software, the maps are not stored locally but in a cache. The latest version seems to have an offline mode but I didn't tested so I can't say if it's totally offline or not. If you want navigation without using your data connection or WiFi, switch to TomTom, iGO, or similar instead.
That's why Google Maps has only couple of MB and iGO for ex. has over 2 GB with all maps loaded...the difference is the space occupied by the maps.
P.S. And yes, first GPS lock is acquired a little bit later.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thank you. that clears it all up
now to that other guy, wouldnt it have been easier to just say that ^

I use Igo for my offline nav. It works just like a tom tom. For my geocaching needs, I use geobeagle.
Sent from my HTC Legend using XDA App

[Q] keep gps on

Anyone know how I can keep GPS running all the time? Specifically, when I use google maps to show me traffic status, if I switch away from it to open another app, the gps stops. Then when I bring it back, the gps has to sync up again, which takes 20 sec usually. I'd like to just keep it going whenever I am in the car. If you use google naviation for directions, the GPS is kept on, but not for just maps.

this is the most annoying thing about the tablet I don't like. ESP when it takes about 10 mins to get a fix again. I'm about to do the fix that makes its go faster. But still. I want a GPS that stays on when I want it to. ESP since I have a car charger and battery life isn't a prob......
Anyone have an answer for this?

willyampz said:
Anyone know how I can keep GPS running all the time? Specifically, when I use google maps to show me traffic status, if I switch away from it to open another app, the gps stops. Then when I bring it back, the gps has to sync up again, which takes 20 sec usually. I'd like to just keep it going whenever I am in the car. If you use google naviation for directions, the GPS is kept on, but not for just maps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I take it your A500 is tethered or your using a 3g dongle when your out and about if your getting google realtime Traffic...Make sure you have -use wireless networks- (Location determined by wi-fi) in Settings checked and you should get traffic even with -use gps satellites- turned off. Just a theory and haven't tested it in the field, but here at home with gps turned off it seems to work fine and shows realtime traffic.

i don't use 3g. I have a bunch of offline map apps.

use something like co-pilot or one of the other top gps apps.. google maps never has worked correctly on my tablet.. the above problem as well as many other ones.. And it sucks battey life. guess if you have it plugged in thats not a issue..
You can also d/load gps status.. and in the settings there is something that will KEEP YOUR GPS on at all times.. .
GOOD LUCK

erica_renee-
Have you tried ActiveTraffic in co-pilot....I see a free 14 day trial available in the app, but never tried it.

co-pilot active traffic Lou. Kentucky is great
YES .. i tried it for the 14 day trial.. But I ONLY Have a a500. and i do not keep it tethered to my phone all the time.. IT does work well in my city.On The co-pilot forms its hit and miss from what i have read.So if you are tethered or 501 activated 3g.. I Would give it a try. the Interface is awesome.Co-Pilot has the most up to date maps of any gps i have used.. even better then the QCOM . That we have in our company vans..
So i say give it a try or ask in the c0- pilot user forum on ALKs web site..

[Q] Does Google Navigation work on the Nexus 7?

Just a couple of simple questions.....
Does Google Navigation work on the Nexus 7?
Can you download offline maps while connected to WiFi and then use them offline with Google Navigation while driving?
Thanks

Questions go in the Q&A section

I read one of the early reviews that said it does work, it has a full gps capable chipset. I thought it was on Android Central, but I can't find the specific article at the moment.

Yes it has GPS and navigation will work. Though remember that navigation requires a data connection so you'll have to supply a wifi hotspot through your phone most likely.

Can it navigate? YES
Can it navigate offline? NO
Is it possible they could add this later? YES, but unlikely
You need data to begin navigation, you need data to reroute, you need data. Is it possible to start navigating with wifi data and drive all the way there without data? Yes, but pray you never make a wrong turn or that the device thinks it needs to reroute. You can test this on your phone by throwing your phone into airplane mode.

Only thing I would add to that:
Can you download maps for your area? Yes, 60 miles or so.
Can you look at those maps offline? Yes, just no turn-by-turn navigation that we know of.
Well a couple more comments. Garmin, Magellan, and Tomtom all seem to navigate just fine, never having a data connection.
The Nexus 7 is certainly more capable than those dedicated GPS units, so Google could do it if they wanted.
Third party Android apps may already have that capability.

Right, its 100% a software issue. The only question is whether google can stop circlejerking about "the cloud" for long enough to actually implement it. Normally I would say no, but JB brought us offline voice and offline maps, so who knows.

I really wish I would have tested this out when I had the chance. Oh, well. We will find out in the next 3-10 days. Hopefully.

It just seems that all of the items are there to do this....

bradsh1 said:
but JB brought us offline voice and offline maps, so who knows.
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Click to collapse
JB didn't bring us offline maps, it's built-in with the newest version of Maps running on most/all android devices now. I have all of Houston and DFW saved to my N1 running 2.3.6...
as others have said- i dont see why we can't have offline nav for offline maps. I think the only reason would be that google wants to incorporate their traffic data into the route calculations, but i wouldn't mind going without that so that i can use offline nav. The N7 is a very capable device, and with large sections of maps saved for offline use it would be awesome for nav.

I'm sure we'll get offline navigation eventually. offline maps was a sure start to it. but don't expect it anytime soon.
I'm pretty sure that there are other navigation maps in the market that don't require data.
but google maps navigation requires data even if you save the maps offline.
This one here on the market has offline, but requires a subscription https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sygic.aura

Tomtom and Garmin don't need data connection to navigate. It is a possibility.
MB860, CM7.2.0, Faux 026b1 1Ghz

iso1600 said:
as others have said- i dont see why we can't have offline nav for offline maps. I think the only reason would be that google wants to incorporate their traffic data into the route calculations, but i wouldn't mind going without that so that i can use offline nav. The N7 is a very capable device, and with large sections of maps saved for offline use it would be awesome for nav.
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Because it is probably a low priority and takes quite a bit of work to make it function correctly, especially when the whole service is set up to work ON THE CLOUD
---------- Post added at 10:00 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:00 PM ----------
i say on the cloud in caps because i hate the cloud and think its ridiculous

I use Sygic on my Transformer for navigation. Works great around here and in Mexico where I can't get a cell signal anywhere. Here are the maps that are currently available - http://www.sygic.com/en/android:buy-now. I have Arizona, California, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, and all of Mexico loaded and those take up about 750MB. When I'm just running around with a cell signal I use Google on my phone. It's very different than the old days, when I had to pay about $100 a year just to keep maps updated to run off a separate gps receiver. - sheureka

the perfect woman is not expensive: she is rich
but in this case is she perfect?
she is if she brins with her a Nexus &:laugh:

Soldier-2Point0 said:
Tomtom and Garmin don't need data connection to navigate. It is a possibility.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've used CoPilot Live Premium without a data connection and it's fine.

Do any of the offline navigation apps work with Jellybean and no SD card? I've seen some reviews where some newer phones without SD storage are having issues downloading maps since it's looking for an SD card/external storage.

I don't know about JellyBean, but I have ICS on my Transformer and Sygic works great. Nothing goes to the SD card.

you could always tether the tablet to your cell.