Positional: Simple GPS App w/ Coords, Elevation, Speed, Bearing

[mtrewartha]

Just pushed Positional v2.5.0 to the Play Store. You can now copy your coordinates quickly by tapping the copy button below and to the right of the coordinates.

Next up: Sharing!

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.trewartha.positional

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

 

[NevadaLover]

Hey that's better, I use your app all the time and when I used to save coords I would screenshot it and use my s-pen to write a note on it, this will work alot better!
Thanks for the app.

 

[mtrewartha]

Hey that's better, I use your app all the time and when I used to save coords I would screenshot it and use my s-pen to write a note on it, this will work alot better!
Thanks for the app.

Great, I'm glad to hear it'll help and thanks for using the app!

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

 

[jeffjeeptj]

Ive been following this App since you first posted it. We were an Apple family, due to the number of Apple devices we had, besides my non-camera Blackberry 2013 era device. I really wanted to use this app, especially due to the support you have been providing.
I just got assigned a company Galaxy S8 with Android version 7.0.. I loaded the app and i suspect i am forgetting something. It shows an elevation of negative 109 feet. I do live in Virginia Beach but my feet are dry, and Irma is not here yet. There is also a survey point that shows 14' elevation in the cul-de-sac. So, standing in my close to flat front yard, i estimate about positive 17'.
What am i forgetting to set for the app to be accurate? Compass has been calibrated and comes very close to my Cammenga, location has been turned on.

Thanks in advance

 

[mtrewartha]

It shows an elevation of negative 109 feet. I do live in Virginia Beach but my feet are dry, and Irma is not here yet. There is also a survey point that shows 14' elevation in the cul-de-sac. So, standing in my close to flat front yard, i estimate about positive 17'.
What am i forgetting to set for the app to be accurate? Compass has been calibrated and comes very close to my Cammenga, location has been turned on.

Sorry the response took awhile, I've been swamped! Couple questions for you:

1. When the elevation shows something weird like -109 feet, what does the accuracy (shown at the very bottom) show as?
2. How long did you wait for it to correct itself?
3. How many separate times has it done that to you?

If you're interested in a bit more info on how Positional gets your location (and elevation), read on. It's worth noting that every single other app in the entire Play Store works the same way, too! Basically, Android exposes two ways (APIs) for apps to get the location that a device's hardware is picking up: LocationManager and FusedLocationProviderApi. Regardless of which API a developer chooses to use for a given app, the app basically subscribes to receive location updates from the API and, as it receives them, it displays them to the app user. This means the accuracy of the location the app shows depends directly and nearly entirely on the accuracy of the location updates given to the app by the API. When I wrote Positional, I chose to use the FusedLocationProviderApi, which is named so because it fuses information from all means of determining a user's location into a single, final, intelligent combination that represents the device's best possible guess about your location. The means of determining your location can include (but will not always include):

• GPS
• GLONASS
• Cell towers
• Wi-Fi

I've also made it so that Positional asks FusedLocationProviderApi for locations with the highest accuracy possible. There are some time constraints I placed on how early and how often Positional gets locations from the API... I think I can tweak those a bit to improve the location accuracy, so I'll give that a shot. I'm also going to try to improve the UI a bit to better show when the locations the API is giving Positional have a low accuracy.

 

[mtrewartha]

Just released Positional v2.6.0! This release adds support for sharing your coordinates.

 

[mtrewartha]

Just pushed Positional v2.7.0 to the Play Store. This is a really small update, but it tweaks the location settings a bit (hopefully resulting in more accurate elevations, jeffjeept) and adds support for the new Android Oreo "adaptive icons" which give you a really clean, consistent shape to app icons.

 

[mtrewartha]

I'm also curious if you guys would have any interest in something very similar to PeakFinder AR, only better. Google released ARCore awhile ago, which is in very early stages, BUT I was thinking it might be pretty cool to build an augmented reality mountain peak finder/info experience into the app. I've been dying to start doing more augmented reality and machine learning stuff. Thoughts?

 

[mtrewartha]

Just released v2.7.1. This is tiny little update that adds some performance monitoring so I can measure how much I'm improving speed of the app, accuracy/speed of location updates, etc...

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.trewartha.positional

 

[toneout]

How come all the android users get to have all the fun? I am growing tired of asking Siri for my elevation. Did you ever attempt to make it for iOS? There was some mention of it at the beginning of the thread. I searched the app store and didn't find it.

Thanks!

 

[mtrewartha]

How come all the android users get to have all the fun? I am growing tired of asking Siri for my elevation. Did you ever attempt to make it for iOS? There was some mention of it at the beginning of the thread. I searched the app store and didn't find it.

Thanks!

Haha yeah, Siri does suck. Many of the tinkerers love Android because of how open and unrestrictive it is, so I think a lot of developers find it more fun to develop apps for. I never did make Positional for iOS. Android is my jam and I can make a far higher quality app on it than I can for iOS, so I'm sticking to it for now. Maybe someday, though!

On another note, I have two huge new feature in the works:

1. Offline Maps: Topo and street maps to start, but I'll eventually add more later.
2. Tracking: I'll be adding the ability to start and stop tracks, export to GPX, and save them to the cloud for viewing across all of your devices.

 

[mtrewartha]

Just released Positional v2.8.1 to the Play Store!

• New icons: Switched to some new two-tone icons
• New Settings screen: Units and compass mode can now be changed in a place that's really obvious (instead of relying on people finding out that you could tap the units before)
• New night mode: This comes on automatically based on your timezone and the time of day. I switched from white text/icons to red to minimize the effect on night vision.
• Completely rewrote the app in Kotlin (for any nerds out there)

I haven't had much time at all to work on this and I won't have a ton going forward... Offline maps and tracking might be on hold for awhile. Sorry! Anywho, hope everyone enjoys this build and let me know of any issues!

 

[mtrewartha]

Make that v2.8.2... Uff da, need moar coffee. There was a bug that caused a crash when visiting the Settings screen in v2.8.1. Sorry about that! The update is rolling out to the Play Store now.

 

[Blklstd]

Start your app and it says needs permission for location can be given on next screen. Goes to next screen and sticks looking for location. No way I can find to give permission. Settings only asks about imperial or metric. And try anything else it says to wait till it finds location. Which never happens

 

[bad luck]

Sometimes I want to know my coords and your app is much faster and easier to find them than anything else I have on my phone.
And I love UTM.