Viewing 33 posts - 1 through 33 (of 33 total)
  • Sat Nav on a tablet with no 3G
  • wors
    Full Member

    For Europe, any options?

    jon1973
    Free Member

    NavFree requires no data connection, you just download the countires you want before you go over wifi.

    mrjmt
    Free Member

    OSMAnd

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    z1ppy
    Full Member

    …hang on a cotton picking moment, shirley, assuming it a Wifi only not a 3g tablet without sim,the tablet has no GPS reciever? If you’ve no GPS reciever, how will the tablet know where it’s at SATNAV app or not?

    I was gunna suggest a Mifi Device but even with that, I’m not sure you will get accurate GPS loaction…

    Tell me I’m wrong.. I’m more than happy to be educated otherwise

    hot_fiat
    Full Member

    tomtom app? and wifi only ipads still have a GPS receiver (yes I know its the same chip)

    dbcooper
    Free Member

    I have 2 tablets both with gps but no 3g.

    jon1973
    Free Member

    …hang on a cotton picking moment, shirley, assuming it a Wifi only not a 3g tablet without sim,the tablet has no GPS reciever? If you’ve no GPS reciever, how will the tablet know where it’s at SATNAV app or not?

    Of course wifi only tablets have gps receivers – why wouldn’t they?

    grizedaleforest
    Full Member

    I use Sygic on my WiFi only tablet. License also lets me use it on other devices so have it on my phone too. Works very nicely and quality of mapping data is good.

    z1ppy
    Full Member

    Of course wifi only tablets have gps receivers – why wouldn’t they?

    ..because that what I’m sure I read about em, I happy to be wrong 😉

    loddrik
    Free Member

    Buy copilot, once you have the license you can use it across a number of devices, I have it on 2 iPhones and two iPads.

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    Of course wifi only tablets have gps receivers – why wouldn’t they?

    Pretty sure my wifi-only iPad doesn’t have a GPS receiver.

    Edit: yep, just checked and the iPad Air is the same. Only the 3G version has Assisted GPS, GLONASS and Mobile.

    The wifi only version lists “Wi-fi” under the Location specs, which if memory serves me right basically amounts to Apple knowing where various wifi points are so located they can tell where you are if you are in range of one of them.

    cp
    Full Member

    Pretty sure my wifi-only iPad doesn’t have a GPS receiver.

    That’s what you get for having an apple product, limited functionality 😉

    Most android tablets have GPS regardless of wifi or 3g etc…

    If you have an android tablet, I highly recommend osmand. It uses open street maps, and the free version has all most folk need. You can download upto 10 regions in the free one. The UK is one region.

    aracer
    Free Member
    Pyro
    Full Member

    You don’t need a data signal to run GPS, z1ppy. A lot use A-GPS, where they use 3G to triangulate your position first and then the actual GPS to refine that (quicker than a GPS-only lock-on), but it’s not essential.

    NavFree or Skobbler both work great on Android, and you can download the maps in advance over WiFi.

    I tried OSMAnd on a Blackberry Playbook and it was rubbish, slow and glitchy – may work better on Android.

    ads678
    Full Member

    I’m sure my wifi only tablet ha GPS. Motorola xoom.

    xherbivorex
    Free Member

    my nexus 7 definitely has GPS and is WiFi only.

    grizedaleforest
    Full Member

    Pretty sure my wifi-only iPad doesn’t have a GPS receiver.

    Yep, depending on the model. There was an Apple design decision that the GPS+Cellular chips would go together (Is there a GPS in iPad), so wifi only iPads don’t have GPS. I’m not sure about the most recent iPads. I presume you could bluetooth to an external GPS is you wanted to?

    gravity-slave
    Free Member

    Built in option for Android – cache Google maps for offline use and don’t get too lost? 😉

    As a backup, can you buy a data bundle and tether it to a phone?

    Lucas
    Free Member

    Was a bit worried on relying on a borrowed GPS for upcoming Euro road trip, I will now be installing NavFree or similar on the Nexus 7 and gaffer taping it to the dash.

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    I presume you could bluetooth to an external GPS is you wanted to?

    You’d have thought you could just Bluetooth to your iPhone and use the GPS on that – but I’m not sure if that is supported or not. Can’t see why it wouldn’t be, other than profits.

    Bimbler
    Free Member

    Navigated to that Italy last year using CoPilot on Nexus 7 (2012)

    steve-g
    Free Member

    GPS with no 3G???? My mind is officially blown

    Cougar
    Full Member

    When the iPad first came out, wifi-only pads did not have GPS; either GPS and 3G used the same chipset or it was just a marketing decision, who knows. Whether that’s still true of all modern iPads or not I don’t know, but I’d guess so.

    There was a lot of FUD and misinformation spouted on the Internet at the time, including people who’d tethered phones to find that it “worked”, but it didn’t. What people were seeing at the time was coarse location information calculated from ‘known’ visible wireless APs.

    This is however an iPad-specific quirk; my first-gen Nexus 7 has full GPS despite being wifi-only, and I have no doubt many others do too.

    You don’t need a data connection for GPS. As Graham says, you can optionally use Assisted GPS to speed up the initial satellite lock; this uses a tiny amount of data, and is optional.

    You do however need data to stream map data. So Google Maps, for instance, can use a lot of data unless you cache the area beforehand. Self-contained maps like CoPilot come with their own map data and don’t suffer from this problem.

    You’d have thought you could just Bluetooth to your iPhone and use the GPS on that – but I’m not sure if that is supported or not. Can’t see why it wouldn’t be, other than profits.

    You’d need some sort of app which shared that data and exposed it to the BT stack. I’d expect that’s a lot more likely on non-fruit based devices, I can’t for a moment see Apple letting the iPhone do that.

    Similarly assuming you do have a means of turning a phone into an external GPS receiver, I’d almost certainly expect that the iPad would only connect to a MFi-certified device.

    Cougar
    Full Member
    z1ppy
    Full Member

    I see I opened a can of worm on this thread… & then slid out the door 😈

    Cougar
    Full Member

    That’s what being happy to admit you’re wrong will do for you on STW. (-:

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    You’d need some sort of app which shared that data and exposed it to the BT stack. I’d expect that’s a lot more likely on non-fruit based devices, I can’t for a moment see Apple letting the iPhone do that.

    Yeah I’ve not checked but I doubt Apple provide write access into Locations Services, so it wouldn’t be possible to write an app that just gave the iPad the correct location for all other apps. BUT it would be easy enough for Apple to do that with built-in functionality if they were so inclined.

    What would be easy enough would be to transmit GPS coordinates via Bluetooth/wifi from the iPhone to iPad and then use them to display the appropriate map. That functionality could be built into something like NavFree if there was demand for it.

    (Personally I’d rather navigate with my phone. I don’t want an iPad stuck to my windscreen and I certainly don’t want to walk about a strange town holding one in front of my face!)

    jairaj
    Full Member

    You can also store Google Maps data offline. Just click on the empty search bar at the top and scroll down to the button at the bottom which says “save map to use offline”

    BadlyWiredDog
    Full Member

    I presume you could bluetooth to an external GPS is you wanted to?

    I use an iPad Mini with a Garmin GLO bluetooth GPS for occasional navigation – it’s also in a waterproof Lifeproof case, the iPad Mini that is, not the garmin GLO.

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    I use an iPad Mini with a Garmin GLO bluetooth GPS

    Interesting. Does that work with any map app on the iPad or does it need a specific Garmin one? If it’s the former then that suggests there is some way to write location information in iOS, so a pairing with a phone is feasible after all. (*hurries off to get a developer licence*)

    From the Garmin GLO blurb:

    “GLO brings you the best of both worlds by combining GPS/GLONASS receivers with Bluetooth® technology so you can enjoy precise position information on your iPad, iPhone or Android device.”

    I get why that would be useful for GPS-less iPads, but the iPhone has a GPS/GLONASS receiver built-in already that gives me my position within about 5-10 metres. (And I suspect quite a few Android devices do too).

    Why would someone pay £90 for a second one?

    BadlyWiredDog
    Full Member

    Interesting. Does that work with any map app on the iPad or does it need a specific Garmin one?

    It works just like a GPS-capable iPhone, so you can run ViewRanger, Google maps or anything else with GPS capabilities – Strava too I guess, if you want to carry an iPad around with you 🙂

    Why would someone pay £90 for a second one?

    Don’t know. Maybe it’s slightly more accurate. Maybe whoever wrote that copy didn’t really think it through.

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    It works just like a GPS-capable iPhone, so you can run ViewRanger, Google maps or anything else with GPS capabilities

    Oooooh that’s very interesting. Thanks. I wonder how they’ve done that then? I may have to go away and geek out on the iOS API and see if I could write an app to do that.

    greatbeardedone
    Free Member

    I don’t know what os your running, but rather than buy an external Bluetooth gps receiver, such as the ‘dual’ brand, i would save myself the hassle and just buy a Nokia windows or google smartphone.

    bear in mind…gadget show consistently rates nokias maps as the best.

    make sure it does dual sim and can be recharged easily.
    might be cheaper to buy one at duty free!

    hope this helps and saves u any undue hassle, and good luck

Viewing 33 posts - 1 through 33 (of 33 total)

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