GPS Software for s60v3 comparison?

Soooooooooo, i've got a N* 6270 & as a n00b, i'm tryin to find software that will allow my mobile phone to function as a rudimentary GPS receiver unit.

I've read a few threads here & there and heard of TomTom, Route66, Nav4All; are either of these downloads functional with my model?

Anyone know where (URL) compatible versions of this software can be found?

Heard from a friend ystrdy that there's a variation with a 1-time download fee of approx $30Cad and without any subscription charges.

If I can get any good leads, I'd be really grateful & can pretty much manage from there; my job takes me to new places on the road everyday & having a GPS receiver embedded into my phone would be a miracle!

Thanks in advance, DPBizzle.
 
Hello,

I am the author of J2memap.

A few remarks:
- this program is not intended to replace navigation system. It's true that you can find do direction, but it was just a toy feature. First because as a free program I can not compete with the guy in the serious business, and even I can not offer a "real" navigation system as it's avoided by Google rules....

- The purpose was more to explore the interest of location based application linked to GoogleMap. For instance, it's very easy to create mashup or link with third party datas, like FlickrMaps, WikiMapia, etc...

- Slow: this is different. It should not be slower than any other program here as this part is very similar in all these program, and an N73 is a quite fast phone. Can you describe me precisely what happens? Is it freeze or slow?

You can contact me directly by Email if you want.
 
Download WinGPS Lite

Before you even run it, make sure you've paired your computer and the GPS receiver. Launch WinGPS and from the toolbar, click on GPS->Properties. These should look like this:

Type: Generic NMEA
Datum: WGS 1984

Now just click on the Autodetect button and let it do it's magic. Once it determines what COM port the device is on, just click Apply and then OK at the Properties window. Now click on the Communication and Position buttons. The Communication button will open a serial connection to the device and the Position button will open up the Navigation Info window displaying the latitude, longitude and speed. Open up the NMEA monitor by clicking on GPS->NMEA monitor. If your GPS is working, you should see your current position.
 
My GPS has a solid red light when it's on but not locked onto enough sats. When it locks on, the red LED flashes. I usually wait for it to lock onto the sats before I turn on the GPS program.

I've been using MGMaps for a long time now. I _really_ wanted the program to work as it's about the only one out there that allows a proxy setting (Nav4All does not but I can't get it to work correctly). However, MGMaps is not a navigation program like the others. Mapping software (MGMaps) is so limited in it's abilities when compared to navigation software that they really should not be compared at all.

I also think Java apps on Symbian phones is just too buggy. I'd much rather use native Symbian software.

I'm visiting another state right now so I thought I'd load Wayfinder. Let me tell you... I LOVE that program! I cranked up the cache on the maps and it's _quick_ (EDGE connection). The turn by turn instructions are great!

One thing I don't like about the program is the price! Or I really should say the price structure. Given that I may not always be paying for full Internet on my phone, I may only want to use Wayfinder for a month at a time. I would much rather see them accept payment on a monthly basis. I'd pay $15/month and never think twice about it. I may end up paying them $50... I may end up paying them over $100. But I'd rather go month to month. I also don't like "lifetime" subscriptions as we all know they are never "lifetime".
 
any one have any idea when Tom Tom 6 will be available for the U.S.....and is Tom Tom better or wayfinder?

i have nokia e61

thnxs
 
I'll pimp J2MEMap in the thread, I think it's great:

http://j2memap.landspurg.net/

Still on the beta side, but it downloads maps realtime (so no needing to load the maps on a memory card), tracks your position realtime, supports KML/GPX exports of your tracks and all that nifty jazz.

It supports driving directions in a neat blue track (your GPS track is in green), so you can follow along the map pretty easily. The big green arrow is current location -- check out the screenshot from his site, it looks like this in real life:



Yeah it's J2ME and kinda slow and a memory hog, but it sure works.
 
Ouch... I tried it for about five minutes, but it was so painfully slow that I removed it without even trying it out with my GPS receiver. Like you said, it is still in beta, but there are other free GPS apps that are rather more mature. On my N73, I currently have installed Google Maps and Mobile GMaps. Once MGM is able to provide directions and traffic overlays, I'm certain that I won't need another GPS application for North America.

On my 6682, I've got Google Maps, Mobile GMaps and Tom Tom Mobile 5. Tom Tom is preferred here because of the GPS and routing capabilities, but it SUCKS!!!! I live in Manhattan; just across the river from New Jersey. How is it possible that I cannot navigate to an address directly across the river, just because it's in a different state? I had a problem a few weeks ago with Tom Tom not finding a route to an address, in the same state, just 10 miles away.

Hopefully, TT Navigator 6 will fix all of these issues, but there's nothing like the power of having Google's hundreds of cluster servers and their API at your disposal. As long as you have a signal, of course.
 
well, performed a few more tests yesterday driving home:

Found that the connection from sat. to program was more solid on the highway than off. Most of the time on the freeway, it was able to remain connected and providing location info. However, once I exited, it was back to the 3-5 min business. REAL annoying, as most people get lost on the little streets as opposed to the freeway.

I still don't know where it's failing, though. All the lights were doing their sequential flashing thing the whole time, there was no change when the signal dropped. So I don't know if it's just the Wayfinder program timing out or bugging out or something or what. I still think it's the program because if I exit, wait a few secs, and then restart, it'll go fine for another 3-5 min.

Still in contact with the Wayfinder people, haven't had a chance to try it out with the laptop. I'm leaving the GPS unit in the same place, i found that right next to the rear view mirror works awesome.
 
There's cracked versions of TomTom 6 out if you know where to look. However, apparently with TomTom you have to store the maps on your device, to the tune of over 1GB. No thanks, I'd rather have Wayfinder just download as needed, so I can save room for movies and whatnot. I'm a huge fan of Wayfinder, personally. Nice interface, pretty good search function, and a good clear voice. Now if I could only update my phone so the BT'd stay connected, I think I'll be good to go. Hopefully going to do that this weekend, so we'll see.
 
Huh, I mean it's slow about no slower (for me - T-Mobile in SF) than Google Maps or MGMaps. In fact Google Maps seems to have a harder time than the other two, but MGMaps and J2MEMap for me load at about the same speed. This is on a 6682, like yours. Adding the GPS didn't make it slower, but it does cause a bump in memory use --- I can't use J2MEMap + GPS with *anything* else (not even Screenshot).

(btw this is with a BT-339 receiver)
 
well, i nearly died on the trip home, but i managed to try Wayfinder, Nav4All, SmartcomGPS, and MGMaps

Wayfinder worked great, till I tried to create a route home. I probably did it wrong, but for some reason it thought I was on loop 12, while I was on 121/114. Pull up a google map of DFW to see the difference. Found that I had to exit and re-start the program alot, not a fan. Though for a bit, I got it to give me directions, though i get the feeling I was playing back the route, instead of real-time. I need to read up on it a bit more.

Nav4All I find is too intensive for active use. I really want this one to work cause when I set it up, I picked the "fun female" voice for UK, cause I'm hot for accents. Couldn't get anything with Nav4All. No GPS use there, and I did switch it to Internal

MGMaps is ridiculously slow. And the culprit of my backlight crapping out on me. It is being uninstalled as I type. It was at least able to read the position, but couldn't move fast enough to keep up with me driving down a street at 40mph. No thanks.

SmartcomGPS gets another trial, I installed at work today and didn't load any maps, so while it tracked my movements, it was just drawing a line on a blank screen, which does NOTHING for me.

I'm going to keep SmartcomGPS and Wayfinder, and perhaps Nav4all, for another test. I'd like to load some maps onto my Memory card, as I think that would help speed the programs up a bit, and I stay mostly in the same city. I'm still runnin on my 128 from Nokia, though, so that might have to wait till I can get my 2GB back from Sandisk.
 
Here are my tips & comments from my GPS experience

1st - For all and any GPS software, I select my GPS Device as "Internal Device". The S60v3 series allow you to pair your GPS device in bluetooth manager, and then all programs can access it via "Internal GPS". You won't get the satellite status as when you are directly connected to the GPS from the software, but your applications will detect and connect to the GPS much quicker.

2nd - SmartcomGPS isn't supposed to come or upload any maps to you. You are supposed to do everything for it. Convert a map PICTURE (jpg, bmp, gif, etc) into their format and load it to the memory card. You can do navigation, but only if you made a gpx file on your computer (its a list of directions, but if you change road, it will just say the direction if your original next point to hit).

In other words, that application is completely useless.

3rd - J2mp is ok, but slow, I cant say I used it much because MGmaps is pretty much offernig the same stuff, but better!

MGmaps - It's pretty near, google map and satellite, and searching for points of interest. The map scrolls as you move around the place in your car or on foot. The only issue with it is it cannot do navigation. If it can do navigation in the future, i hope it will offer a screen where you just see an arrow saying when and where is the next turn, and not an overhead map view, as that is kinda tricky to look at while driving.

Nav4All - For a free application, I'd say it's pretty darn good. You can download a voice package of many languages and accents (example for English you got British and American, male and female).

It will do navigation and auto-update the route for you if you miss a turn or go elsewhere to get some gas or food or whatever along the way.

It has the map view, the directions view (big arrow of next turn, distance to come, estimated time of arrival), list of all the directions to do with street names.

My only problems with Nav4All is that the distances until next turns are taken as if the point of the turn is far in the middle of the intersection. So at 0 meter, you'll already be way into your turn, so you gotta estimate that the next turn is actually closer than stated. Directions can sometimes be confusing, like it will tell me to do a U-turn on the highway if I miss the exit.

Sometimes, if you go off-course, it will have truoble auto-updating the route, it will suddenly point the direction of your final target instead of directions, or say to do something, and then it changes its mind over and over.

And the searching of addresses is a pain in the ***. If your city is big, it will ask you to chose the region, if you chose the wrong region of the city, it will not be able to find the street you're looking for. And it sometimes doesnt find your street name if its complicated. I just think their search engine isn't very smart. It will suggest completely unrelated names, and when you DO find your street, you see they named it correctly, but somehow, because you started with "avenue" instead of "boulevard", it couldnt find it.

All in all, Nav4All is best for navigation, but MGmaps is best for looking at the maps and stuff around you.
 
Well here's an update:

Wayfinder still isn't holding the Sat. connection, and I'm convinced it's Wayfinder's fault, namely because I've watched and there is no change in the indicator lights when this happens.

I DID, however, get Nav4All working, finally. The trick? Create a copy of the MEdiaNet Access Point and name it Nav4All (or whatever you want) and go in and disable the proxy.

It's obviously not as quick as Wayfinder, seeing as how it's java and not symbian.

The English (UK) fun female is pretty hot.

Still not sure about it, I'm going to give it a go tomorrow on the way to work.
 
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