Apps for iphone (& other smartphones)

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BarryG

Nomad
Oct 30, 2007
322
0
NorthWest England
How does a Blackberry stand up against the Iphone and/ or Android (which until now I had never heard of).
Thinking of getting a new one, and it would be handy to have access to the net (BCUK Forum mostly)

B
 

Adze

Native
Oct 9, 2009
1,874
0
Cumbria
www.adamhughes.net
Do you care to explain how your HTC Desire screen is better than an Iphones screen. I only ask as they use the same system to register the inputs form your fingers, and thus have the same electronic fields within them!

Same type of screen yes... but the iPhone 3's screen is about half the resolution of the Desire which is within a hair's breadth of the iPhone4 (apart from the direct sunlight aspect).

For reference:
HTC Desire 480 x 800
iPhone 3Gs 480 x 320

Cheers,
 

Ray Britton

Nomad
Jun 2, 2010
320
0
Bristol
Hi Adze.

It serves me right for falling into the trap of using your word 'better', when I had initially said 'versatile' (a totally different thing, and in a totally different context lol). But that's life lol.

On a bit of a tangent: is there an ideal app for any of you android users, that you cant find? If so, I may put it to the resident app designer, although he rarely rates my ideas lol.
 

siman

Tenderfoot
Oct 29, 2010
82
0
Blackpool, UK
Tip to extend battery life on iphones. (latest software)
press menu button twice. This opens panel at the bottom of the screen showing applications running in the background. keep a finger on an icon until a minus sign appears. touch the minus sign to close these items running in the background. With these applications closed, the battery will last longer. The applications simply open again when selected.

Only works on the 3gs up though.
 

madra

Member
Oct 6, 2008
33
16
the intarweb
some of my personal outdoorsy, campingy, bushcrafty faves [all for iphone]:

* motion-X GPS [£1,79]

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GPS app with all the usual features you'd find in your garmin and then some! more options than you can shake a stick at and it uses open streetmaps, google, bing and their own motion-x maps, all of which are free. so no need to pay to load extra maps - just download them, as and when needed.

* living earth [59p]

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weather app with 3D spinning globe with live cloud updates and night/day shadows. not the most detailed weather app out there, but having a 3D almost realtime rendition of the earth, spinning in the palm of your hand is pretty cool.

* star walk or pocket universe [both £1,79]

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two excellent 'virtual sky' apps which show you what all those pinpoints of light overhead are. if you've got an iphone 3GS or 4, then these apps work with the built-in GPS and accelerometer to update their displays in realtime as you turn around pointing the phone at the sky. both amazing but, of the two, star walk has the more polished graphics; when you move your phone to point in the direction of a constellation, a picture of the 'thing' that constellation is supposed to depict slowly fades into view and then out again as you move on. it's a work of beauty.


* stanza [FREE]

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not specifically a bushcraft app, but if you want to have sommit to read in your tent at night, this is the best ebook reader out there. combine it with the free calibre - desktop app, which allows you to create ebooks in epub format [the preferred format for stanza and other ebook readers] from PDFs, word docs, plain text files etc and websites like burgomeister's books and project gutenberg and you'll never need to ask for a book token for chrimbo again!

* birds UK [59p]

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one for all you twitchers out there. lists the 50 most common british birds, complete with photos and information on habitat etc. there is also an audio clip associated with each bird, which allows you to play its song. for quite a few of the birds you get two or three calls listed, such as 'song', 'mating call', 'alarm call'. quite good fun for confusing the hell out of any of our feathered friends around you. [to be fair, some of the recordings aren't the best quality. you can hear other noise in the background, but it's still pretty good for under a quid]

* st john ambulance first aid [£2,39]

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the price is a bit steep, but i'm assuming it's going to fund st. john's ambulance, so it's all in a good cause. fairly basic stuff; this app willnae turn you into a brain surgeon, but it might help you know where to rub on the TCP, if you've accidentally cut your own head off, while chopping firewood.

* good reader [£1,19]

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the best reader out there for all those other documents which your ebook reader cannae handle –whether because they're in the wrong format, contain images, or are simply too big. good reader's main selling point is that it handles large PDFs [which choke a lot of other apps] very well. i've got a PDF scan of the workshop manual for my van, which weighs in at about 200mb and good reader is the only app i've found that will open it and allow me to navigate round it, without crashing and burning.

* moon globe [FREE]

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if living earth [see above] allows you to carry a 3D rotating globe of the earth in the palm of your hand, moon globe does the same for the moon; drag the moon around to rotate it in any direction, pinch and zoom to view in close up, identify the prominent features [as well as all the moon landing sites], or go into 'live' mode and see a representation of the phase of the moon in your current location at the current time.

* SAS survival guide [£3,99]

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digital version of the venerable book. uses the iphone interface well, to organise the info for easy access and includes some nice novelty touches such as the facility whereby you can type a message and the app will flash your iphone screen on and off in morse code to spell out that message. great for signalling "help! - please drop beer" to that passing rescue plane!

* theodolite pro [£2,39]

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a theodolite for your phone. as well as the usual, direction, bearing, altitude, inclination etc. measurements, it also includes the ability to use triangulation to measure the distance to a distant object, if you know the height, or the height of a distant object, if you know the distance. all that lovely pythagorean theory stuff they tried to beat into us at school! having said that, i've yet to put it to the test, so no idea how accurate it is.

* tunein radio - [£1,19]

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listen to streaming internet radio from all over the world, including all the UK standbys, such as the beeb and the world service. i've only used it over wifi, where it runs as smoooth as silk. it's supposed to run on data/3G network as well, tho' i've not tried this. might be worth a go, to help keep you in touch with what's going on in the world, if you're somewhere you can still pick up a phone signal [preferably 3G] and have a generous monthly data allowance.

* knot guide [£1,19]

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interactive know tying guide with step by step photo instructions, showing you how to tie 95 different knots, as well as information as to what they are best used for. useful app and is updated fairly regularly with new knots being added.

well, those are some of my favourites. i hope there were of some in there of use to some of you. i also hope the mods willnae slap me down if i finish by mentioning that i run a apple-related discussion forum called appletalker. please feel free to drop in there with any technical problems or questions you have, relating to your shiny new iphones, or other apple gadgets.

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knifefan

Full Member
Nov 11, 2008
1,048
3
61
Lincolnshire
Samsung Tab !!!!! Full open operating system not tied to the "i" corporation not goin back (and if u put your sim card in it - its the biggest *uckin phone ever!!) LOL

:D
 

jonajuna

Banned
Jul 12, 2008
701
1
s
re the discussion of iPhone vs Android

you are all missing one massive point

iPhone is a particular smartphone made by one manufacturer with closed source OS unique to that hardware

android is an opensource OS that is loaded onto many many different smartphones, while most are made by HTC, there are also models made by samsung, LG and Dell.

to compare iPhone with a particular android phone and say IOS is better than the Android, is missing the point of Android OS and the multiple phones it can run on



on another note, battery life in any smart phone will be reduced according to how many radio devices you have running at one time plus background software (though, can iPhone multitask yet? :p )

so if running a 3G signal and the GPS chip and the wifi chip along with the standard voice carrying 2G signal, you will run out of battery in no time..... wifi should always be off unless you are in a hotspot and wishing to use it, 3G should be off unless sending/recieving data, likewise the GPS chip unless actually navigating in some way

now, as far as i am aware, neither android or IOS have the options to manipulate your usage of the various radios in this way... hence i have stayed with my trusty win6.1 where i have full control over which radios are in use at anyone time. my winmo is set to be 2G only, until i actually switch on manually, one of the other radios..... the 2 year old battery in it still carries charge for 3 days of usage and best part of a week in standby

"apps" (formally known as software) i use include:

BeelineGPS
Memorymap
TomTom
googlemaps

most of my books i carry are in that old fashioned thing called paper :p
 

Chrisj

Nomad
Oct 14, 2009
251
0
Gwynedd
Are there any android GPS apps that don't require a data connection when they are being used?

Try View Ranger. It gives proper OS mapping on your phone and is available on android. The maps are saved onto the memory card on the phone so it doesn't need a data connection in use, only when you initially download them.
 
Sorry for the long post.. So, so far the comprehensive list on here is as follows for iphone apps, Maybe someone needs to start another thread for android apps to accommodate them as its a huge debating area on pro/con! :cool: If anyone can help with the links to Apple would be appreciated! :confused:

ID APPS:
  • iPlant
  • TreeID
    The British Tree Identification Guide
  • WinterTreeID
    The British Winter Tree Identification Guide
  • TreesUK
  • Trees of Britain
  • Tree Identifier
  • BirdGuide
  • BirdsUK
    Handy reference audio and photographic guide to the 50 most common British garden birds
  • Birds of Britain
  • Birds of Britain & Ireland
  • Garden Birds of Britain & Ireland
  • Birds Identifier
  • FishID
    The Field Guide to UK Coarse Fish
  • Reptiles & AmphibiansID
    Reptiles and Amphibians of the British Isles
  • Wild Food Forager
    A good app for ID of wild foods
  • Herbs+
    Guide to popular herbs, pics, culinary ideas, medicinal.
  • Fungi
    Great graphics for selecting fungi world wide
  • Wild Mushrooms
    Great app as you can narrow the search down for UK fungi, poisonous etc
LERNING APPS:
  • Knot Guide
    Probably the best knot guide out there. IMO (ive tried them all!!)
  • Animated Knots
    Watch as knots tie themselves in simple step-by-step photo animations
  • Survival Guide
  • SAS Survival Guide
    The definitive guide to surviving any situation
  • Army Survival Guide
  • Survival Pocket Ref
  • iSurvive
    Millitary grade survival manual
  • Survive it!
    Wilderness survival manual
  • WikiHow
    The 'how to' from wiki
FIRST AID APPS:

SKY APPS:
  • Star Walk
    Astronomy Guide.. Wow, Wow, and more Wow! Just point it to the sky and find out what that dot is! Blew me away this one! Even tracks satellites now!
  • Pocket Universe
    Astronomy Guide
  • Living Earth HD
    A globe of the Earth with 'almost' live weather and night/day shadows
  • Starmap
  • Moon Phase
    All sorts of moon info
  • Moon Globe
    3D graphics and touch navigation of the moon
  • Met Office
    Official Met Office weather, warning, not reliable.. but then is any weather map forecast!!
  • Xcweather

MAP & NAVIGATION APPS:
  • Google Maps
    Comes installed! Satellite and road maps
  • Google Earth
    Map of the world in 3D
  • GB Road Atlas 250K
    OS maps of the UK with free road atlas by RouteBuddy.
  • Memory Map
    Download OS maps paid by region
  • MotionX GPS
    GPS app with all the usual features you'd find in your garmin and then some! uses open streetmaps, google, bing and their own motion-x maps, all of which are free
  • ViewRanger Premium
    Download OS maps, plot routes
  • Peaks
    Find out what mountain that is
  • GridPoint GB
    Gives you OS nation grid reference
  • Spyglass AR
    Milspec compass, tracker/finder GPS, bearings, sun moon and stars, inclinometer, sextant, rangfinder, angular calculator, camera, maps and more!
  • Theodolite
    Compass, GPS, map, camera, rangefinder, inclinometer.
  • Compass
  • ecompass
  • 3Dcompass
  • Navfree UK & ROI
    Free sat nav
  • TomTom
    Paid sat nav
  • Traffic Eye
AROUND YOU APPS:
  • Camping and Caravan Parks
    If you 'Really' have no other option!
  • The National Trust
    Fancy a day out and wondering where to go?
  • AA Bed & Breakfast
    Search for accommodation
  • Wikihood
    From Wiki, but whats in your 'Hood' around you!
HUNTING APPS:
  • Shooting Hours
    Calculate sunrise sunset for shooting hours
  • Goose Hunting Calls
    5 sounds of goose calls
  • Duck Hunting Calls
    7 sounds of duck calls
FOOD APPS:
  • BigOven
    Over 170,000 recipes for free
  • Foragersfriend
    A great new app so not much on it. Simple google map with pins added where wild food resouces have been found! (if more of you guys helped on this app, this would be brill for us all to use, Ive added some in East Anglia so far!!)
  • Dutch Oven
    Store your recipes
  • iBBQ
    Great for cooking BBQ's
  • Vegetable Garden Planner
    Step by step of planting, growing, harvesting and storing processes. Insect and disease info.

CAMERA APPS:
  • almost DSLR
    Great features to turn you camera alomst into a DSLR camera
  • Pro HDR
    Stunning photos achieved with HDR technology. Improves the colour and aperture depth.
  • TrueHDR
    Stunning photos achieved with HDR technology. Improves the colour and aperture depth.
  • Tripod
    Great if you've been drinking and cannot steady that camera around camp, or if you just want to get the horizon straight!

MISC. APPS:
  • Tapatalk Forum App
    For chatting on BCUK of course (and BB)
  • iBooks
    Apples iBooks reader
  • Stanza
    A good rival to iBooks, create your own ebooks
  • GoodReader
    Reader for all those other documents which your ebook reader cannae handle
  • Scottish Midge Forcast (UK)
    Forcasts when those midges may bit!
  • Tunein Radio
    Radio on the go! Thousands!! but you'll only need radio 4 of course!
  • Rapid Media Magazine
    A downloadable magazine for Rapid,Kayak, Angler, & Canoe roots.
  • PocketGuitar
    Play that guitar around the camp fire
__________________________________
BCUK PDF Books
Download Bushcraftuk's own books onto your iphoone ibooks as PDF files.
 
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bojit

Native
Aug 7, 2010
1,173
0
56
Edinburgh
The Gary: Tank Commander app is standing to attention and awaiting your orders. Navigate your way through 5 categories of top Gary quotes from series 1 or get all interactive with Gary's exclusive 'Mystic Ball' - just ask a question, shake his face and you'll get your answer.

Full of Gary's best quotes, questions and advice, this is the greatest piece of army kit since pudding in a bag.

Craig.....................
 
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