[OSM-talk] iPhone vs Android - OSM shootout

[Woll]

I use an iPhone 3G. 
I've never used any other GPS device, so I can't give you a direct
comparison, just my experience with the iPhone.
My area (Japan) was completely blank before I started, so I've really been
concentrating on mapping "roads" rather than POIs.

1) Precision
In suburban/low-rise/countryside areas: When placed horizontal on a car
dashboard (i.e. probably only half the sky is visible) - or carried
horizontally in front when walking -  the precision is good. 
It gets a fix within 10-15 seconds. 
When carried vertically inside a shoulder bag pocket with the bag over your
shoulder, it is less accurate (probably because it is only seeing about 1
quarter or less of the sky), but still creates a track that's useable for
mapping. 
I don't think the vertical/horizontal orientation is important, but the
amount of visible sky is important.
In city centre (when surrounded by tall skyscrapers and held horizontally
away from the body): it is less accurate but reasonable.
In city centre (surrounded by tall skyscrapers and carried vertically inside
a shoulder bag pocket with the bag over your shoulder and walking along the
side of a street): The tracks are not accurate enough for mapping.

2) Applications
I've used OSMTrack, Track n' Trails, and Trails.
OSMTrack:
    No map.
    No graphical display of track. Uploads directly to OSM
    Displays compass and other info - not focussed on the track.
Track n' Trails:
    No map. 
    Good graphical display of track. 
    Used to be able to upload directly to OSM, but has not been updated
since the last OSM API change (so need to email track to email account and
then upload from there)
    Good 'lock' mode, which displays dynamically zoomed track during
recording.
    Has a bug - which I think is caused when the physical 'home' button is
pressed before the 'Stop' button in the app is pressed - which can cause
sections of the recorded track to be deleted.
    Nice and simple/clear display - focussed on the track.
Trails
    Displays the OSM (mapnik?) map during track recording (so you can see
where roads are unmapped).
    Displays the track on top of the OSM map.
    Very complicated - loads of info and buttons and not so intuitive or
clear display.

My favourite (and the one I've used for all my mapping so far) is "Track n'
Trails", it's simple and clear. The only thing I miss is that it doesn't
display any map, just the graphical track. I've recently purchased "Trails"
because it shows the OSM map, but it feels quite inelegant in comparison.
None of those apps (I think) supports POIs. If I was in an area where the
roads had already been mapped then I'd use a completely different app, but I
haven't looked at any of the POI apps yet.

3) Battery life
Not long enough for day trips. The battery runs out in a few hours, even
with ordinary usage of the iPhone, so on a day trip with a 2 hour car drive
you can't map both the outward and inward journeys.
I now have a Mophie Juice Pack Air for the iPhone 3G, which solves the
battery problem completely - it can last all day/a few days easily. I'm not
normally recording a track continuously all day, but with the Juice Pack Air
I have never run out of power. I've never had another smartphone with web
access, so I've no idea how the battery of the iPhone 3G compares to the 3GS
or Android phones.

Regarding your positive and negative points: I don't really think that any
of the +ve ones you list for Android are important for me, and I don't think
the -ve ones you list for the iPhone are important for me either!

Hope that helps!
Woll



valentt wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> I'm looking for the best mobile phone for OpenStreetMap. 
> Which mobile phone do you think is better for OpenStreetMap?
> 
> Things for consideration are:
> - onboard GPS precision
> - applications for GPS logging
> - applications for POI collection
> - battery life when mapping (how long can you map)
> 
> Please share any experience that you have with any or even better if you 
> had experience with both of them. I only user iPhone for a short while, 
> and haven't even seen Android for real but I ran Android emulator via SDK 
> to get a feel for it.
> 
> 
> Here are some of my thoughts...
> 
> Android positive points:
> - platform on the uptake, more apps coming every day
> - nice POI collection app [1]
> - runs multiple apps at once
> - quite open platform
> 
> Android negative points:
> - less apps than iPhone, both for OSM and general
> - not so good as multimedia player (video and audio podcasts)
> - a bit bigger and heavier than iPhone
> 
> 
> iPhone positive points:
> - lots of apps, both for OSM and general [2]
> - CloudMade MapZen POI collector supports for iPhone [3]
> - multitouch interface
> - great multimedia player (video and audio podcasts)
> - nice deal for a 2 year T-Mobile contract
> 
> iPhone negative points:
> - runs only one app at once :(
> - pretty closed platform :(
> - quite expensive, no carrier in Croatia offers it in contract deals :(
> 
> 
> [1] http://maps.bigtincan.com/btc-mapper.php
> [2] http://blog.cloudmade.com/2009/03/19/bring-cloudmade-maps-to-your-
> iphone-application/
> [3] http://mapzen.cloudmade.com/mapzen-poi-collector
> 
> 
> -- 
> pratite me na twitteru - www.twitter.com/valentt
> http://kernelreloaded.blog385.com/
> linux, blog, anime, spirituality, windsurf, wireless
> registered as user #367004 with the Linux Counter, http://counter.li.org.
> ICQ: 2125241, Skype: valent.turkovic
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
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> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
> 
> 

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