Earthcomber: Freeware app to share waypoints

[JMckie]

Announced the other day on Palminfocenter (http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_story.asp?ID=7665)

According to the supported devices page (http://www.earthcomber.com/comber/equipment/whatdoineed.jsp) the iQue 3600 is supported. I haven't tried it yet.

The basic idea is very exciting. Here is the gist of it:

users can mark places of interest as they travel, making field notes while the software provides the map coordinates and other details. Users with GPS (Global Positioning System) will be automatically positioned on Earthcomber maps. Users without GPS can use the maps to position themselves. The break-away feature, however, is that users can then share their own locations in Earthcomber's new "community" area.

Locations can be shared with public groups, or kept in private, member-only groups. Users who join a group can load that group's locations onto their own Palm-powered devices, or browse the locations on the web. For example, if one member of a bird-watching group marks 20 new spots for viewing birds, and a second member marks 30 new spots, all members of the group get access to the 50 new spots.


I'm not sure what to make of it yet. This will only work if it there is widespread adoption. And that is very hard to predict. I'll try it out this weekend. Unless someone else wants to break trail?

[Chan Eil Fhios]

That looks like it could be very interesting. I've signed up, but I can sync to my Q just yet. Hopefully tonight.

My only thought (and it's extremely minor) is that it doesn't look like it will record heading as well as location. No real problem, of course, since you can put it in the notes. Still...

Thanks for the lead!

[amw157]

Gave it an honest try. Downloaded several maps and selected several categories of locations.

The thing was very flaky on the iQue. Many, many resets needed. Wasn't stable at all.

What's more, I couldn't choose to move the data files to the card, at least not using the provided app. When I moved their files to the card using Filez, nothing worked.

Nice idea, but needs work.

[JMckie]

Thanks for checking it out. I really wanted this, or something like this to work. One of these days, someone will figure it out. Maybe Google, maybe Microsoft. I hope it is some upstart developer who succeeds though.

[amw157]

Here's what I don't understand ... don't we already have something like this (kinda?).

I mean, on the board, we can share waypoints with each other. I know I have made such offers.

[JMckie]

Emailed to Earthcomber:

I like the ideas in Earthcomber, but it is missing a few things. Here's what I want Earthcomber - or something like it - to be:

The basic idea is good: a central repository for people to download and share waypoints. It also comes with a map viewer application on the handheld. A searchable yahoo-style directory to categorize waypoints was a nice touch. Ditto the forums and community area. I like the business model where companies pay to have their locations available.

But there are the basic things it is missing:

- it has to be truly global
- ability to upload and share tracks
- upload and download in any format, with conversions done automatically
- an online map viewer, so users can explore and preview before downloading

I've seen a few of these waypoint collections online, but none of them has truly taken off and become a standard.

[dsohr]

Thanks for all the feedback (painful as it sometimes is) about Earthcomber. We acknowledge that we need to do a better job with file mgmt and memory card support, and these items are on our short term list. We offer over 3000 free maps (and 1.5 million locations) across the US, and most of the the maps are under 1.5 megs. But some of them ARE huge, so we will address this issue as soon as we can.

The issue about the IQue surprises us. Our founder runs Earthcomber on his IQue 3600 daily and does not have any issues. If you can provide more detail about the problems you experience on this device, forward them along to support@earthcomber.com and we'll jump on them as quickly as possible.

[JMckie]

Originally posted by dsohr
Thanks for all the feedback (painful as it sometimes is) about Earthcomber. We acknowledge that we need to do a better job with file mgmt and memory card support, and these items are on our short term list. We offer over 3000 free maps (and 1.5 million locations) across the US, and most of the the maps are under 1.5 megs. But some of them ARE huge, so we will address this issue as soon as we can.

The issue about the IQue surprises us. Our founder runs Earthcomber on his IQue 3600 daily and does not have any issues. If you can provide more detail about the problems you experience on this device, forward them along to support@earthcomber.com and we'll jump on them as quickly as possible.

I tried the app just now and it worked fine for me - no problems.

My experience with it was uneven.

I was impressed by the quality and user-friendliness of the Palm app and the website. The process by which updates are downloaded from the server is excellent. Help and wizards are everywhere. I'll just give my impressions as I was going through the application:

- no option to download directly to the card. For users who don't have 8Mb free for maps, this is a necessity. (Maps can be transferred later)
- you have to visit too many pages to set things up. First time users rarely stick around long enough to learn about "comb databases" or "look lists". This should be streamlined
- No basemaps are available. A basemap, however simple it is, should be automatically installed.
- Look lists are checklists of POIs that you want to see. You have to configure the distances individually. This is not necessary at all if the POIs are sorted by distance from the current location
- The website is nicely done, but confusing.

Summary: IMO, in its current form, it doesn't have much to offer to the iQue user who already owns NA City Select. For a Palm user who doesn't own any mapping software, this freeware gives excellent value, the very least of which are the free maps.