Cheap iPhone turn by turn gps

Dear all,

So I spend my days mostly commuting around town, occassionally Portsmouth way and around to Kent , so I am not a long distance tourer but enjoy the adventure and intend to do further journeys…

It is often the case that when I get confused or nolonger trust my judgement, I cross reference the map application on my iPhone…or a real map…

This became tiresome when in a hurry,etc and so after many hours of researching, I chose to download co pilot from iTunes for £25 pounds or so.

At present I place it in my tank bag, which carried my bare essentials that I also use to angle the screen so it is more visible. I also use my earphones to hear the main turn by turn instructions to stop me looking down when riding for safety…and I have to say it works very well. I have travelled in the backstreets of London, changing my route and seeing it catch up and re plan at an acceptable speed… It has a variety of settings and options to tailor to your needs, and lastly it is all in my iPhone so I can use it even when I am lost on foot…(it does happen and my previous efforts of leaving a trail of crumbs feel apart via trafalgar square!).

So I have a good turn by gps for £25 pounds…except the only problem is the battery dies after about an hour and a half…

Accemate battery connects, an accemate external cigarrette lighter fitting (about £14 including postage) and an iPhone car charger (with additional USB docks to charge another phone or camera etc cost £14)
solved this problem so I now have full power for directions (aswell as mp3 that gets turned down for directions if need be automatically)…

So after wiring it up, deciding the best location for the fitting, my last choice is wether to get the dahon weather proof iPhone bike holder for the handle bars (£40) which means I don’t need my tank bag…we will see about that one in near future…

So cost break downat present :

Co pilot £25
Wiring and cig lighter fitting £14
iPhone car charge £14

Total £53 for full uk n ireland turn by turn gps

At some point once I have worked out how to get photos on these links I shall drop them in if anyone is still interested…

Thanks for Reading

Phil

Google maps has a beta navigation option now, on Android at least…isn’t there an app for the iPhone?

Dear alex

the iPhone has a maps app that looks the same as google maps
but it isn’t a full blown turn by turn gps with voice commands etc
which looking at google maps, is not a full blown gps either?

I used apple maps for a while but it lacked that re routing option and voice commands etc, the clarity on junctions ahead etc.

I am sure some are happy with this option, I just wanted a more practical option that didn’t need constant looking at a screen

as you have this option pls correct me if I am wrong on any of the above

thanks

Yep Google Maps navigation is on the new version, released a couple of days ago…voice commands, arrows, line tracing the route, basically very similar to TomTom etc…

http://www.google.com/intl/en_uk/mobile/navigation/#utm_campaign=en_uk&utm_source=gh4smm&utm_medium=ha&utm_term={keyword}&dc=gh4smm

google maps should apparently be available on the iphone soon. free as well!

Not being an android user, I am clearly out of the loop
re google maps…it will be interesting if it does come out for the iPhone as mentioned as it will surely be the end of tom tom (who made a big announcement at the 3gs launch last year!!)n the like,
and ofcourse the end of a deal breaker for getting an android phone too?..I see stocks in tom tom garmin n the like fell by 10/20% on the day it was released… I guess this will be on the 4th iPhone or iPhone HD in the summer…Interesting how apple never updated their own maps app to this level?

Well I think this is a great alternative for people who already own an iPhone. I particularly like the MP3 player at full power regardless of how long your journey is. I think if you have to buy an iPhone for this particular purpose that it might end up being a bit expensive, though, looking at the cost of Motorcycle SatNav, you might as well buy the iPhone and then at least you get a snazzy phone too.

The iPhone is also bluetooth right? So if your Helmet (fnar) supported it you could bluetooth the directions and MP3 to your lid and thus do away with the ear phones?

dear kaos, thats one of the reasons why I set this up as I cant justify £250 minimum (zumo 400!) at the least on a sat nav for occasional use…if the google maps comes to the iphone (TBC) I’ll download that for free and I’ll be even happier now I have a power socket set up for the phone…I am a big Iphone fan so to me it made total sense if you already own one to use it to its fully capabilities…As for blue tooth, the iphone 3G and 3GS have A2DP (stereo bluetooth) so it should work with bluetooth equiped helments (though I would always recommend trying the system with the phone before you buy as I know people who have bought cars and have nightmares trying to sync there mobile phones!!!)…this is my next step to get that blue tooth set up but at the moment I use normal headphones-not ideal but it works as a budget option for directions n listening to music on motorways, etc…

Phil can you post up some links to the stuff you got for the iPhone to complete this task?

Both the app for the iphone, for the GPS, and the “accemate” connectors, could you include a link to the Dahon waterproof mounting too?

I did try to Google for the Accemate, and ebay, but nothing comes up on google except this thread. So figured if I was going to come ask, I might as well ask you to link up everything required.

Decided this was a more productive way of getting Sat Nav on the bike, and I needed a new phone, mine is 4 years old.

does the gps app also have speed camera warnings?

Hey Kaos,

Hows the studying going?

Sorry been caught up…So here are the links to accumate (my mistake on the spelling I think sorry) as well as link to Co Pilot. I did a lot of review readings on ITUNES aswell as other sites and it got better reviews and general feedback, however there are other two or free others available so feel free to make your own choice…(and yes it does have speed camera locations-about 90% accurate at present, and you can have live updates re traffic, etc)

There are two types of battery connect (one fully weatherproof and one not) and I use the cigarette lighter and have an IPHONE cigarette charger…

What I would say is decide what phone you want (New Iphone is coming out in the summer so I would wait til then before getting an IPHONE as you will get a better deal, better phone). I love the IPHONE and MACS in general (after having many PC based smart phones), however others in this link recommend the new HTC I think with googlemaps thats free with it (and awaiting its release on the IPHONE?)…

I dont have the iphone holder yet so cant give a full review of it, I use my tank bag at present…

Anyway, I should be popping by on wednesday (weather/time permitting) so I can show you it all set up if need be…

http://www.accumate.co.uk/it020007.htm

http://www.accumate.co.uk/it020005.htm

http://www.accumate.co.uk/it020006.htm

http://www.fudgescyclestore.com/index.php?p=104814

Hope this helps

Unfortunately for me and my crappy student credit rating, getting the iPhone at a decent price has been quite difficult, I am pretty sure they won’t be giving me a brand new one :smiley:

Thanks Phil, I won’t have the phone by Wednesday as I think it will be delivered Thursday, and I may or may not be popping up to BM depending on weather, it is supposed to be raining. I will have it for next week though so maybe you can show me your set up and how you got it going.

Appreciate the links will have a look at them after I eat.

I’m using MotionX Drive gps app, cost $0.99 and a bluetooth ear bud headset (Sennheiser MM200) as I didn’t want wires in the way and didn’t fancy sticking something to my lid.

I’m now looking at ways of attatching it. RAM do an iphone motorcyle mount which looks worth a try :slight_smile:

Only the more expensive RAM ones seem waterproof though, the Dahon one appears waterproof from the start.I also like two other things on the Dahon one, firstly, it has space for the recharging unit inside the waterproof mounting, the Ram one did not appear to have that, and secondly, it was set up so that you could record video from the iphone while it was in the water proof casing. I couldn’t tell if you could do that with the RAM mountings.

I too am interested in a bluetooth set up, however it now appears at present that the iphone with OS3 does support a2dp stereo headsets…Though I am curious how these fair when answering a call when riding, etc with the dongle bit hanging???I always find the ear buds move about in my helmet and then irratate after a while when they slip…

http://www.trustedreviews.com/mp3/review/2008/12/07/Sennheiser-MM200-Bluetooth-Stereo-Headset/p1

Note-is the Dahon waterproof (fully?) or weatherproof as stated in the link???

Well in the video he says “fully waterproof”…though it does say weatherproof outside the video…maybe it depends on the one you get? I didn’t notice that as I only really watched the video.

For the bluetooth issue, have you considered getting a bluetooth crash lid? I have a Viper VS-121…actually i have 2, since you can Bluetooth between the helmets and have a conversation with the pillion (this is untested as yet as I have not found anyone brave enough to get on a bike with me :D).

Will also bluetooth to a phone, have bluetoothed it to my old samsung, but that can’t play music so instead use a music player that acts as a bluetooth to my phone and I wear earbuds with a microphone.

But I agree with you, they are not that comfortable, and are really annoying when they slip and can sometimes be quite painful.

I will use the iPhone as a music player though as well as sat nav and will have that bluetoothed to my skid lid, which is why I wanted to check out the set up you described to keep the battery going so it doesn’t run out on those long 2 hour journeys. Would be a pain to have no Sat Nav, no music and no phone after riding for a few hours.

I am not sure how long the lids last, but about 4 hours conversation time between passengers and that is probably the most intense use of the battery power (two way talking) just listening to music…could be a little longer.

Man I hate Apple so much, this is why I delayed getting an iPhone.

They make a good phone, but what fool makes their website? I got a quad core machine with 8gig of RAM, 12ghz of processing power a graphics card that has more processing power then the last nasa moon mission, and yet their website is slow and chunky and when I search for an App, which I found no problem on my phone…i can’t find it.

So pointlessly cluttered and full of crap, why not make a simple app interface where if I can’t search direct, I can browse.

It probably exists but I am having no joy gaining access to it.

Shameless resurrection of a sleeping thread but this one answered a few of the questions I’d already had about Sat Nav. As an iPhone user I didn’t realise there was a sat nav option that was viable for use on the bike with my phone. Was happily heading towards asking the Mrs for Tom Tom or the like for Xmas. Especially as I’m considering a trip to Italy in May next year. However, further to reading this here’s a few questions for you:

Are you both still using / happy with this option or has something better come along?

How does it do with country roads? (i.e. is it only good on main or A roads or when you get into lanes does it still recognise where you are?)

How easy is it to put the connectors onto the bike? I don’t have a clue about the electrics and if it’s any more complex than connect the blue bit to the red bit then I’m probably going to have to get a garage to do it, any suggestions?

Have either of you tried the waterproofing options?

Am sure some other stuff will occur to me but just spotted this thread and these are the things that occurred to me straight away.

Thanks

n

I got fed up looking all the way down at my tank bag for directions. the more time eyes are off the road, the more dangerous it is.
Instead I bought a Tomtom XL for £110ish. that’s new so I get 12 months of updates etc including speed cameras.

I then bought a double-bubble screen for my '99 fazer so there was a gap above my instruments.

I then retreated into my garage with some old computer parts and a pair of tin snips for a couple of hours and and made a satnav mount

it’s not pretty, it’s more expensive than yours, but it’s a lot easier to follow.
Oh and I fitted a fag lighter socket under my seat, the charger runs under the fuel tank to the front.