GPSSerial 1.4.1 released: allows for multi-tasking

A new version of GPSSerial (version 1.4.1) is available now from the Orange Gadgets website here.

Note: GPSSerial (version 1.4.1) that is currently on Cydia is not working correctly, so please follow the link above instead and install the new version manually. Make sure to first remove the old GPSSerial package completely and reboot your device as outlined in the above link.

Version 1.4.1 of GPSSerial has quite a few bug fixes and upgrades to it:

• The new version allows multiple CoreLocationManagers to access the external GPS module. GPSSerial will route GPS data to each of them. Certain AppStore apps instance multiple CoreLocationManagers which sometimes caused problems with the older GPSSerial (version 1.3.x). This has been resolved now so a lot more AppStore apps will work correctly with GPSSerial.


• The new version allows multiple applications to run simultaneously and GPSSerial will route GPS data to each of them from the external GPS module.


• On iOS4, you can have multiple apps running without having to fully close them before switching to the next location aware app.


• On firmware 3.x, you can install Backgrounder through Cydia and also run multiple location aware apps at the same time.


• Apple's built-in Maps.app functions correctly on both firmware 3.x and iOS4.


• If you switch the settings in the GPSSerial user interface from e.g. iGPS360 to iPhone GPS, GPSSerial will switch from the external GPS module (in this case the iGPS360) to your iPhone's built-in GPS or if you don't have a built-in GPS (e.g. if you are on an iPod touch or an iPad WiFi only), it will use WiFi triangulation and forward that to the running application.

The above upgrades and bug fixes have taken up a great many hours and they would not have been possible without the feedback of all of you.

Try out the new version and post your feedback in the comments or visit the xGPS forum here.

Tips for iOS4 and the iGPS360

A few people have reported having difficulty to get the iGPS360 to work on the newer devices that can run iOS4 with multi-tasking.

Here are a few tips and things that you should keep in mind when running iOS4 that is capable of multi-tasking:

• If you have a device that can do multi-tasking, keep in mind then when you hit the home button when you are in an application, that appplication doesn't fully close. It keeps running in the background.
  
  
• In order to completely close an application, do the following:
  
  1. Hit the home button twice (double-press) and a bar will show up at the bottom of the screeen that shows all your apps that are currently running.
     
     
  2. Find the application that you wish to fully close, press and hold its icon until a red minus-sign shows up.
     
     
  3. Tap on the minus sign and the app will be full closed.
     
  
  
• Even if you reboot, apps keep running in this way, that is, the applications that are visible in the bottom bar after you hit the home button twice, will stay there, even after a reboot.
  
• Press the home button to exit the multi-tasking bar and return to the home screen.
  

So how does this relate to the iGPS360?

In order to use the iGPS360 with AppStore apps, a piece of software called GPSSerial needs to be installed and is available through Cydia. The current version of GPSSerial (version 1.3.4) was designed for firmware 2.x/3.x and is as such not capable yet of the multi-tasking environment of iOS4. GPSSerial does work however on iOS4 in the normal non-multi-tasking way as it did on firmware 2.x/3.x.

Here are some tips when your are using the iGPS360 on a multi-tasking iOS4 device:

1. Before using the iGPS360 module, make sure that no apps are running in the background that could potentially access the iGPS360. By that I mean, apps that use the CoreLocation framework and ask for a GPS position. If an app that is using the iGPS360 would already be running, a second app that you want to start up will not be able to connect to the iGPS360 at the same time (at least not in version 1.3.4 of GPSSerial). GPSSerial will report that the serial port is already being used and that it can't open it.
   
   
2. In order to smoothly use different apps with the iGPS360 module, make sure to always fully close an app through the double-home button procedure mentioned above, before starting up a new app that wants to use the iGPS360.
   
   
3. If you wish to start from a completely clean slate, close all apps that are running in the background through the double-home procedure and directly after that reboot your device. Then after the reboot, you can be sure that no application is using the serial port.
   

The above "shortcomings" with respect to the multi-tasking environment of iOS4 will be addressed in the next scheduled update of GPSSerial which should be coming out very soon (that is within a week or maybe two weeks).

If you have trouble getting your iGPS360 module to work on iOS4, please post a comment or ask for help in the comments.

And stay tuned for the next major overhaul of GPSSerial!

JailbreakMe.com and the iGPS360

With the new jailbreak from comex, all devices that are running firmware up to and including iOS 4.0.1 can now be jailbroken.

For more details, visit www.jailbreakme.com with your desktop webbrowser first and when you are ready to jailbreak your device, open up Safari on your device , then visit the www.jailbreakme.com site and follow instructions. Your device will be jailbroken in a few minutes!

As such, all devices will now work with the Orange Gadgets iGPS360 module and this includes the latest third generation iPod touch models (MC models) as well as the iPad running firmware 3.2.1 (both WiFi and WiFi+3G) and the iPhone 4, running iOS 4.x.

And make sure not to forget to back up your SHSH blobs so you will always be able to revert back to an older firmware if you accidentally upgrade. If you wish to know how to do this, visit the Firmware Umbrella.

Enjoy!

GPS navigation for your iPhone/iPod Touch: Sygic and the iGPS360

Link for iPhone and iPod Touch users here

Link for iPhone and iPod Touch users here

This is the first in a series of upcoming videos that will demonstrate some of the GPS navigation applications that are available on Apple's AppStore.

The first software that is put to the test is the Sygic navigation software. Sygic supports different countries and regions. Click here to see their AppStore listings.

Countries supported are: North America (includes the US, Mexico and Canada), United States (only), Europe, Australia & New Zealand, Russia, South-East Asia, Brazil, and United Kingdom & Ireland.

The equipment used in the video is a first generation 16GB iPhone with an iGPS360 module from Orange Gadgets using GPSSerial 1.1 and running Sygic NAM version 7.71.2 Build 5961 D Map version 7.80.

I purchased their North America version last week for $79.99. Currently they have a sale going on at the AppStore and the North America version is $69.99. If you are in the U.S., you can purchase the United States (only) version at the sale price of $49.99 (assuming you won't be traveling to Canada or Mexico).

Here is the review:

• Start-up time: about 14 seconds.
  
  
• User Interface: Sygic's user interface is mainly made up of icons. After you have used it for a bit, things are fairly easy to find, with the exception of how to change/edit the list of favorites(I had to do a Google search for that to find out how to do it; turns out you need to use the "Manage POI" icon). An awkward thing about the user interface is that it does not respond to the typical iPhone/iPod Touch swipe gestures, that is, instead of swiping the screen, you have to press on an arrow. Take your time to read the guides included in the application and find all of the "hidden" features. As the user interface consists of icons, you can't really tell how deep a certain menu option goes; a typical iPhone table view would have been better for the UI to make things more concise and easier and quicker to find.
  
  
• Routing/re-routing: Sygic automatically re-routes when you go off-route. Recalculation of your route is pretty quick, usually a 3-5 seconds or so. As I was using GPSSerial 1.1 for the video, the video doesn't show this when I decided to take the 405 Freeway instead of the 5 Freeway. But with the upcoming update of GPSSerial (yes, Mathieu from Xwaves has done it again!) you will get a working auto-re-routing feature and also the heading and speed issue has been fixed :-)
  
  
• Route planning: Sygic's route planning menu is quite sophisticated: you can view route instructions (text) or show the route as turn-by-turn images as well as get a route demo. In addition you can enter an itinerary, which means you can add multiple via points into your route before getting to the end destination. Quite neat.
  
  
• Settings: Sygic has quite an extended list of settings that you can change to your likings: from regional/language/voice settings, 2D/2D North up/3D View, daytime/night colors, auto-zoom to screen indicator settings (like speed, time, distance) and quite a few more.
  
  
• List of favorites: you can maintain your own list of favorite destinations and this list is fully manageable/editable through the "Manage POI" icon.
  

Hope the review is useful for you and stay tuned for the next video which will cover Navigon North America...

The iGPS360 and AppStore applications

Long awaited, there now is a first beta version available of GPSSerial which enables the iGPS360 module to work with AppStore apps.

All credit for this works goes to Mathieu from xWaves.

Mathieu has worked tirelessly over the last few weeks and finally managed to get AppStore applications to work with an external GPS module (and this includes the iGPS360 module from Orange Gadgets).

I also shouldn't forget to mention Rodrigo from Portugal, who got the whole MobileSubstrate project started back in January. Neither Rodrigo nor I had sufficient objective-C experience to take it a step further and make it happen, but that is where Mathieu stepped in and brought the project to completion with a first beta version release of GPSSerial today.

For more details and installation instructions on the new GPSSerial software, please check out the GPSSerial post on Mathieu's blog.

In order to get the GPSSerial icon on your SpringBoard, remove the SpringBoard cached installation plist com.apple.mobile.installation.plist in /var/mobile/Library/Caches and respin the SpringBoard with the command killall SpringBoard.

If you have the iGPS360 module, make sure to select that in the GPSSerial software.

If the solution works for you, consider showing your support to Mathieu and possibly donate a few dollars to him for all his hard work. You can click here to get to his xGPS blog and then on his blog click on the donate button in the top right.

As with all beta releases, the current release is most likely not bug-free. You can report problems that you encounter in on new section of the xGPS forum. Needless to say, it is a work in progress. If you need help, consult the community on the forum.

I have installed the software on my 2.2.1 iPod (first generation) and 2.2 iPhone (first generation) and can confirm it works for the following free apps that I tried (make sure you have a satellite lock when you try it out):

• xGPS (with the iPhone 3G GPS as the selected GPS to use)
  
• Google Earth
  
• Trailguru
  
• GPS Tracker
  
• GPS Ally
  
• GPS Log
  
• Zillow
  

I don't have US maps for iDA, so I can't tell you if it works with iDA, nor have I tried any of the GeoCaching apps. Maybe some other people (in Europe) can give feedback...

Enjoy!

Don't be tempted...

That time has come again..... if Apple's 3.0 firmware upgrade will come out on Monday, June 8 (or any time there-after), I would like to issue a warning....

To make it clear to everyone, if you intend (to keep) on using the GPS module on your iPhone or iPod Touch, make sure NOT TO UPGRADE your iPhone and iPod Touch firmware yet, until we can confirm that the module works on the new firmware.

The same goes for iTunes. Leave it alone till it is confirmed that it is safe to upgrade. The iPhone Dev Team has already posted a warning on their site last week regarding iTunes 8.2, see here

In order to communicate with the GPS module, a jailbroken iPhone or iPod Touch is required. Upgrading to Apple's official 3.0 firmware will put your iPhone/iPod Touch (temporarily) back into Apple's jail until the iPhone Dev Team has released the new tools to jailbreak the 3.0 firmware.

So if you would like to keep your options open, play it safe. Leave your current firmware and iTunes alone for now and wait till the light turns green.

Exactly 200 GPS modules left!

It's been a little while since the last post. Things have been very busy for a number of reasons.

As the title of this post already announces, at the time of writing this post, there are only 200 GPS modules left for sale.

I expect these remaining modules to be sold out within the next 5 weeks, so if you are considering buying a GPS module, you have to be quick!

Back when the first production run was initiated in September last year, I wanted to make 1000 modules available to you all. As a matter of fact, at that time, it was unclear what the yield of the module in production would be and as such I decided at that time to make 1100 modules instead of 1000. As nothing yields perfectly (100%) in production, I decided to put a safety margin of about 10% to cover for any yield loss.

Interestingly enough, the yield has been a lot better than that! To give you some statistics about the 1100 modules that have been produced so far:

1. Assembled PCB boards
   
   • One board had a short in a copper trace. This short was removed.
     
   • One board had a defective blue LED. The LED was replaced.
     
   • One board had an open contact on the USB connector. The connector was resoldered.
     
   • Three boards had a non-communicating GPS engine, rendering the boards in-operable (real yield loss).
     
   
   
2. Injection molded housings and lenses
   Considering the issues that had come up during the housing development, I had 1200 housings with lenses made instead of 1100.
   
   • Housing top: about 90 pieces were screened out because of imperfections.
     
   • Housing bottom: about 55 pieces were screened out because imperfections.
     
   • Lenses: about 65 pieces were screened out because of imperfections.
     
   
   
3. GPS performance (open and clear sky)
   
   • All tested modules passed (1097 pieces)!
     

So when it comes to the PCB, the yield has been extremely good (>99%). Only the housing has a relatively large yield loss (5%-10% overall) and I have already talked with the housing supplier to get this improved for the next run. The housings will no longer be bulk-packed and shipped by a courier (which I think has been the main factor of the imperfections). Instead each housing top and bottom will be layer packed with foam for the next run and I will go and pick up the housings myself to avoid possible damage during shipment.

Looking back over the last six months, sales have been a slower than expected, especially January was a slow month. Sales have picked back up in February, and especially March has been very busy.

As the remaining units are expected to be sold in about 5 weeks from now, I have had to put myself into high gear the last two weeks getting everything ready for the next production run. Typically, it will take another 4-6 weeks before we can expect new modules ready to ship from this second production run.

Since this is a second production run, hopefully things will go a lot smoother than was the case for the first run and hopefully no unexpected problem will show up.

In any case, I want to thank everyone for their support over the last year (yes, it's been already more than a year; the first post on this blog dates back to February 2008).

It's amazing to see that when one person in a certain country orders a module, shortly afterward a couple of more orders from the same area in that country come in! So keep on spreading the word about the module!

MobileSubstrate update

Some good news and some less good news today (it seems they always come together :-0).

I have been playing around intensively trying to hook into the CoreLocation framework by using the MobileSubstrate platform. Rodrigo, a customer from Portugal, dropped me an email two weeks ago with some very useful source code and a link for a MobileSubstrate tutorial on using MobileSubstrate to trick the Springboard.

Rodrigo pretty much figured out how to feed the CoreLocation framework coordinates and accuracy data. I decided to dig in a little more and managed to also feed the CoreLocation framework fake (generated by a random number generator) altitude, speed and heading data. It was a little bit tricky to get the speed and heading in as it required upgrading the Toolchain to 2.2 (I was at 2.0.1, but am currently at 2.2). It looks like Saurik has updated his instructions for building the 2.x Toolchain and it seems to be pretty straightforward now assuming you follow instructions as outlined (I have done it a few times now and have gotten the hang of it :-)

So what have we been able to do? I installed a bunch of free AppStore apps on my iPhone 2G that are GPS related: Google Earth, GPSLite, Beacon, Speedometer, GPS Tracker, GPS Ally, GPS-R and Trailguru.

Here are the most interesting ones:

• GPS Tracker: this app has a nice readout on its screen of the location data (see top left screenshot above) and was therefore most helpful in trying to figure out the hooks. I signed up for a device key on the InstaMapper website so that my location data could be uploaded to their site. Due to the override of the location accuracy, the GPS tracker shows "tracking" on its screen (it doesn't matter what you set the slider at), but it only seems to send the location data to their servers once (right after I start the application). The data on the iPhone screen is however updated continuously.
  
  
• Google Earth: this app also displays the fake latitude and longitude data after pressing the little bulls eye in the lower left corner. Also here, the data is only updated once (when you press the bulls eye). Make sure to turn the latitude/longitude display on under the settings in Google Earth. The altitude shown is actually not related to the CoreLocation altitude as it is the altitude for the zoomlevel of the satellite image that is active.
  
  
• GPS Ally: this app shows the current location data on its screen as well (see top right screenshot above), but here also, the data is only updated once (after starting the app). You can re-update it manually by hitting the "Update On/Off" button in the lower left corner twice.
  
  
• Trailguru: this app also shows the latitude, longitude and altitude/elevation (see the bottom center screenshot above), but doesn't seem to use the speed data (probably because it was written for firmware < 2.2). Here again, the actual app doesn't seem to use the changing CoreLocation data even though the values are changing on its screen. An interesting thing is however that if you press on the "Map" icon at the bottom, the center of the map does move around according the the fake data the CoreLocation framework is fed.
  

So now for the less good news...

I am currently stuck as I haven't figured out how to tell an app that new CoreLocation data is available so that e.g. the GPS tracker app will continuously use the new data and send a new point to its servers. The same for Google Earth, GPS Ally and Trailguru.

What I think is that we need to do something with the CoreLocationManager framework and/or the CoreLocationManagerDelegate framework and their delegates. We would need to somehow tell the CoreLocationManager object of the app that the CoreLocation object (which I am succesfully feeding fake location data) has a new data set so that it will actually use that new data.

So I am counting on some help from you in getting this figured out as I have pretty much run out of ideas.

You can do some reading around in Apple's documentation and on the forums to see if we can find what needs to be done.

I have also uploaded the source code for the CoreLocation hook here. If you wish to try it out, make sure to have Toolchain 2.2 installed (if you have Toolchain < 2.2 installed, just comment out the speed hooks and any other ones that the compiler complains about in the source code). Also make sure to install MobileSubstrate through Cydia on your device and also put the libsubstrate.dylib file into your filesystem library directory on your desktop so the compiler can find it. Make sure to "ldid -S" the ExampleHook.dylib file after it is put in /Library/MobileSubstrate/DynamicLibraries on the phone. You can take a look at the Makefile as most of the process is automated in it.

If it turns out to be possible and we do find the solution, it will be great news as it means that we can use our iGPS360 module with the majority of the AppStore apps!

GPS voice navigation for the iPod and iPhone

Link for iPhone and iTouch users here

Link for iPhone and iTouch users here

I have been playing around with software related things the last couple of days.

I decided to upgrade the iPod Touch 1G to firmware 2.2.1 (the video above was taken at firmware 2.2) and I also upgraded the iPhone 2G to 2.2.1.

Unfortunately, I had some problems with both the iPhone and iPod getting stuck at the Apple logo screen after having re-installed/synced AppStore apps on them with iTunes.

So that's why I ended up upgrading the iPod to 2.2.1 (after it got stuck at 2.2) and downgrading the iPhone again from 2.2.1 to 2.2 (after it got stuck at 2.2.1). I think the Apple firmware has a fundamental flaw in the way it boots, trying to rebuild the SpringBoard application list which takes a long time and eventually times out, freezing the iPod/iPhone at the Apple logo screen. I searched online to see if there were any fixes, but none of them worked, so I ended up restoring both the iPod and iPhone.

It looks like things are working again now as I haven't gotten stuck at the Apple logo (I have removed most of the AppStore apps that I had downloaded though and did a reboot after every single package I installed with Cydia).

I also installed the latest beta version of Xwaves' xGPS software to see what had changed in the period I was gone.

There have been quite a lot of bug fixes and additions to xGPS. You can track the development roadmap here. The major new additions for version 1.2 are:

• A first beta version of voice navigation in English is now implemented and the speech engine does a pretty good job of pronouncing the directions (see the first video above). It will need some future tweaks to correctly pronounce abbreviations (like Rd, Blvd, Pkwy, N, E, S W, slashes, etc), but other than that it does a very good job. It would also be nice if the user could set the distance(s) at which voice directions are given; they are currently set at about 400m and 20m before the next turn.


• GPS coordinates are now accessible under the GPS settings menu. It would be nice if they could also be displayed in the bottom menu bar of the map view, similarly to the Google Earth application.


• A Night Mode view is now available under the User Interface settings menu. Night Mode can either be manually enabled or automatically through a timer from 8pm through 7am. The timer is currently fixed, but will be fully customizable in a future release.


• You can also have your iPhone/iPod play music at the same time when using the xGPS application. The voice directions will be played through the music (see the second video above). It would be nice to have the music fade in/out when there is a voice direction.

According to the roadmap, the next official release is scheduled for February 20, 2009. I am sure you are all looking forward to it.

GPS module working with iPod Touch 2G

With this post I am planning on regularly making posts on the blog again :-)

After a rough start of the year, today it is time for some great news!

Just last Saturday, January 31st, I got an email from Matt, an Australian customer who ordered the iGPS360 module a little before Christmas.

Matt has an iPod Touch 2G and ordered the iGPS360 module in anticipation of a jailbreak for the iPod Touch 2G, which was not available at the time he ordered.

Matt send me the above picture, showing the xGPS software running on his iPod Touch 2G. You can see the iGPS360 module in the upper right corner.

Matt used Redsn0w from the iPhone Dev Team to jailbreak his iPod Touch 2G. It is certainly not as easy a jailbreak as for the old iPod Touch and iPhone, but it certainly works as Matt's photo shows. For more information on how to jailbreak your iPod Touch 2G, please visit www.redsn0w.com.

The jailbreak is a tethered jailbreak, which means that you will need the assistance of a computer if you want/need to reboot your iPod Touch 2G for some reason.

Matt had upgraded the firmware on his iPod Touch 2G to firmware 2.2.1 before using the jailbreak. This thus also confirms that the iGPS360 module works on the new 2.2.1 firmware.

Matt has also posted his success of the jailbreak on iPodTouchFans, so if you are interested in seeing how many people are jailbreaking their iPod Touch 2G with Redsn0w and their success rate, take a look at that forum.

Matt, thanks for your feedback and great photo contribution!

The backlog has cleared!

We are happy to announce that we have cleared the backlog for paid orders. What you see in the photo are the shipping records of the first four weeks of shipping. We have shipped 352 orders now (close to 400 modules).

Today, I have taken a day off from shipping packages... a nice break. Not really a day off though, as I had to meet with the PCB board manufacturer to streamline the future production process a little better so as to free up some of my time. All remaining PCB boards of the first production run have been assembled and are ready to be tested and put into their housings.

For all of the units that have been shipped so far, I have personally put the PCB board inside of the module's housing. For the remaining units, I am transferring this task to the PCB manufacturer who is going to do this so-called full "box-build". They will first be assembling a test-run of 20 modules and if approved after inspection, they will have the green light to do the full "box-build" for all remaining GPS modules of the first production run. In that way I will have some more time available to do other things.

Testing and quality control of all "box-build" modules will still be performed by myself for the remainder of the first productions run. These tasks will eventually also be transferred to the manufacturer for subsequent production runs. So tell your iPhone/iPod friends that you know a good Christmas gift :-)

Talking about the Holiday Season, the end of coming week will be Thanksgiving here in the US (aka Turkey Day) and I have decided to take two days of rest on Thursday and Friday (so if I don't immediately respond to your emails or questions, you know why :-)

And lastly, I am still trying to get in touch with a few customers who have not responded to my emails. If your order or customer number is below, please contact us as soon as possible at orders@orangegadgets.com to resolve issues with the shipping address and to avoid further delay:

1. Order id: 413, Customer id: 305
   
2. Order id: 865, Customer id: 609
   

For all technical support for the module, please email support@orangegadgets.com.

Frequently Asked Questions

I have finally had some time to write up the answers to a few frequently asked questions (FAQ) on how to get up and running as quickly as possible with your new iGPS360 module.

The FAQ is posted on the main Orange Gadgets website and you can access the FAQ by clicking on "FAQ" in the top menu bar or by clicking here.

Another question that has come up repeatedly is the security certificate warning that appears in certain cases up when you try to access the Orange Gadgets Online Store. Regarding the certificate error, you can "add an exception" or click "accept" or something similar with respect to the certificate security notice. The certificate is from Globat.com who is our web-provider so it is perfectly fine to add the exception (your security is not compromised). Besides that, payment for your order is processed on PayPal's website (not Orange Gadgets) so ordering is very safe. We are currently in the process of getting our own certificate such that the warning will disappear in the near future.

Regarding filling paid orders, here is the latest update.

We have currently shipped 277 orders (over 300 modules). We have completely processed and shipped all orders placed up through 10/30/2008 with the exception of the orders listed at the end of this post and 5 orders placed on 10/30/2008 that still need to be shipped.

Upcoming week will be our fourth week of shipping and we expect to have fully cleared the backlog by the end of this week. Thanks for being patience and sticking with us through these busy past weeks.

I also wanted to make Italian customers aware of the fact that the Italian post office seems to be randomly charging customers additional fees. Some Italian customers have reported a 15 dollar fee, two customers reported a 20 Euro fee and one customer a 22 Euro fee.

The category the GPS module is classified under is HS tariff number 852691 which is duty free (at least here in the US), but since it is a international tariff number code I would expect it to be duty free in every country that uses HS tariff codes.

I suggest that Italian customers inform themselves of the customs regulations for Italy and in particular with respect to the above HS tariff number and border fees. You should be able to find this information online or by calling your local customs office. The fees the Italian post office is charging are excessive. In case the additional fees are legal, note that according to the Terms of Service of Orange Gadgets website, the customer is responsible for paying any import duties and taxes on his order.

Lastly, we are trying to get in touch with a few customers who have not responded to our emails. If your order or customer number is below, please contact us as soon as possible at orders@orangegadgets.com to resolve issues with the shipping address/method and to avoid further delay:

1. Order id: 413, Customer id: 305
   
2. Order id: 626, Customer id: 438
   

For all technical support for the the module, please email support@orangegadgets.com

Diligently making progress...

This is the latest update on clearing the backlog for placed and paid orders. We are happy to announce that we are swiftly catching up on the backlog.

As of today, we have shipped 195 orders (over 200 modules have been shipped).

We have completely processed all orders that were placed on:

• Orders for 10/16/2008: all orders shipped.
  
• Orders for 10/17/2008: all orders shipped.
  
• Orders for 10/18/2008: all orders shipped.
  

If you have placed an order on any of the above dates and not received a shipping notice by email (check your spam-box as well), please contact us as soon as possible (please include your Order id and Customer id).

The following orders are in the process of being handled next and we expect them to be shipped by the end of this week (so please keep an eye on your mailbox in case we have questions on your order):

• Orders for 10/19/2008: 15 orders still to be filled.
  
• Orders for 10/20/2008: 17 orders still to be filled.
  
• Orders for 10/21/2008: 7 orders still to be filled.
  
• Orders for 10/22/2008: 9 orders still to be filled.
  
• Orders for 10/23/2008: 9 orders still to be filled.
  
• Orders for 10/24/2008: 5 orders still to be filled.
  
• Orders for 10/25/2008: 5 orders still to be filled.
  

We expect to have filled ALL paid orders up till 11/09/2008 by the end of next week.

If you placed an order, please make sure to also check your spam-box/bulk mailbox as sometimes our emails (sent from orders@orangegadgets.com) end up there for no good reason. It is best if you can white-list any emails you get from the above address.

We are also still trying to get in touch with a few customers who have not responded to our emails. If your order or customer number is below, please contact us as soon as possible at orders@orangegadgets.com to resolve issues with the shipping address/method and to avoid further delay:

1. Order id: 395, Customer id: 294
   

For all technical support for the the module, please email support@orangegadgets.com

First 120 modules have shipped

This is a brief update to let you know we are working hard on clearing the backlog on all placed orders.

As of Tuesday November 5, 2008, we have shipped ~120 modules (a total of 114 orders) out of the 320 modules that have been paid for.

Based on the number of modules shipped since last week, we can say that on average we are able to handle/ship about 20 modules per day. As such it will take another 2-3 weeks till we catch up on all orders that have been placed till now. For more specific details, please read on:

All people that had signed up on the pre-order list before the online store opened (it opened on October 16, 2008) and who have paid for their order before our first ship date (which was October 27, 2008) have had their order processed and shipped.

We have completely processed all orders that were placed on October 16, 2008.

• Orders for 10/16/2008: 12 orders placed, 12 orders shipped.

The following orders are our next priority:

• Orders for 10/17/2008: 50 orders placed, 31 orders shipped, 19 orders still to be filled.


• Orders for 10/18/2008: 67 orders placed, 20 orders shipped, 2 orders canceled, 45 orders still to be filled.


• Orders for 10/19/2008: 51 orders placed, 21 orders shipped, 1 order canceled, 29 orders still to be filled.


• Orders for 10/20/2008: 31 orders placed, 12 orders shipped, 1 order canceled, 18 orders still to be filled.


• Orders for 10/21/2008: 19 orders placed, 12 orders shipped, 7 orders still to be filled.

To fill all orders that were placed on the above dates, will take a little over a week.

If you placed an order on October 16, 2008 and have not received a notice that your order has shipped, please email us at orders@orangegadgets.com.

For all other orders, please remain patient. Once we finish the next couple of dates, we will make another entry on the blog to keep you updated.

Also, if you have run out of patience and would like a refund, please contact us directly at orders@orangegadgets.com. It is quickest to resolve this directly with us as we can refund your money the same day instead of going through PayPal.

We are also trying to get in touch with a few customers who have not responded to our emails (make sure to white-list the orangegadgets.com domain). If your order or customer number is below, please contact us as soon as possible at orders@orangegadgets.com to resolve some issues with shipping:

1. Order id: 395, Customer id: 294
   
2. Order id: 245, Customer id: 191
   

For all technical support for the the module, please email support@orangegadgets.com

Production schedule update

It's been a little while and things have been busy streamlining the production effort. It was quite an experience to see how much continuous interaction is required with suppliers and vendors to keep things going at a steady pace and to get them to meet deadlines.

Here is an update on the status of various items:

• Housing:
  The mold making is in full progress. The first production samples are due in the week of September 15 (next week).


• USB cable
  The first 100pcs are expected on September 10 (tomorrow) and the remaining ones by October 10.


• Bi-color LED
  Estimated time of arrival for the LED is September 15 (next week).


• GPS engine
  The GPS engine will be delivered early in the week of September 22.


• Antenna
  The antenna tuning process has been completed and we are now waiting for a committed ship date for the production units. A test report is expected back within the next few days.


• PCB boards
  Yesterday, a purchase order was placed for the production PCB boards and board assembly. The PCB panels are due back by September 23.


• PCB board assembly
  The start of assembly of the PCB boards is scheduled for September 25.


• Estimated arrival of the first GPS modules
  We are expecting the first assembled GPS modules back on October 8.

In the meantime, I wanted to see how much interest there is for one or more additional USB cables from your site. Every module will ship with one micro USB cable included, but for myself I have found it handy to have a few cables around: one for the car, one that is attached to the computer and one that is plugged into the Apple AC charger. These USB cables are 6ft long and thus a lot more convenient than the short Apple sync cables which are barely 4ft.

As the lead-time on these cables is fairly long (9-11 weeks), I would like to see how many people are interested in one or more additional USB cables and possibly get things started off early. Each additional cable will cost $4.50. If there is a lot of interest, I can get the price down to $4.00.

Note: we are talking about a micro-USB cable here (not a regular mini-USB). One side of the cable is a standard USB-A plug for the charger/computer, the other side a micro USB-B plug for the module.

I have placed another poll in the left column where you can voice your opinion. Also feel free to post additional comments.

Another puzzle...

Things have been a little slow this week. The GPS modules are still at the antenna house for antenna tuning and the expected date of arrival of the test results is scheduled for September 8th. As it looks now, things are going to be delayed a bit because of this :(

On the upside of this, I have had some time to relax a bit (definitely needed) and play around some more with the 2.0 Toolchain. I managed to compile a GUI app for the iPhone with the 2.0 Toolchain. I can tell you, it is quite a time-sink not having a Mac OS X platform with the proper tools to write iPhone apps. I am seriously considering getting an Intel Mac to do all the software development. Anyone out there have a spare one sitting around... :-o

Anyway, as we will pretty much be waiting this week for the test results, I decided to give you another puzzle to kill some time.... what could it be that is in the photo?

Confirmed: serial port working on firmware 2.0.1

Link for iPhone and iTouch users here


Last week I sent four GPS modules to the GPS vendor to do some final testing and antenna tuning. So while waiting till we hear back from them, I have had some free time to spend on software.

The first thing I have done is made myself familiar with the WinPwn 2.0.0.4 tool out there and it seems to work pretty well. I have used it to:

• Upgrade a 1.1.3 iPhone to 1.1.4
• Upgrade a 1.0.2 iPhone to 2.0.1
• Pwn a 1.1.4 iPod Touch, staying at 1.1.4

It's a little tricky as the process of things you need to do to upgrade to 1.1.4 and to 2.0.1 is different. Also, for upgrading to 1.1.4, you don't need to put your iPhone/iPod into DFU mode when restoring your custom firmware. It actually has to be regular restore mode; you will end up with an error if you try to use DFU mode. For upgrading to 2.0.1, DFU mode has to be used however when restoring the custom firmware. For upgrading to 2.0/2.0.1, I have found the manual here quite useful.

I have also used the command line version of QuickWpn and this seems to work as well (it is for jailbbreaking only). This tool is good to use on an iPod Touch as it is very fast and doesn't require a custom firmware (you can't unlock your iPhone with it though, only jailbreak).

So after I installed 2.0.1, it was time to install the 2.0 Toolchain on my desktop running cygwin. Saurik has put out a very good manual for doing this. But be aware, it is not a simple procedure. You have to understand what you are doing and even then it might take you a couple of tries to get everything right. For the required iPhone/iPod filesystem, it is best to get this from the iPhone/iPod itself (make a tar-ball as this keeps the symbolic links). All the Mac OS X 10.5 SDK stuff comes from the MacOSX10.5.pkg file in the iPhone OS 2.0 SDK dmg here, and you will need a bunch of other Apple sources that come from the Mac OS X 10.5.3 Darwin sources here. You can also do some more reading on The iPhone Wiki for Toolchain 2.0.

I will probably write up the procedure up on a Wiki sometime later as I took notes of everything I did. It took me three days to complete the process and I have learned quite a lot from it.

Another option is to install the 2.0 Toolchain directly on your iPhone. This can be done from the 2.0 Toolchain BigBoss entry on Cydia (this also installs the 'make' utility). Also make sure to read the instructions there. These same instructions apply to the desktop Toolchain as well, except you will have to adapt the path names to your local environment.

Also, once your application is on the iPhone/iPod Touch, it needs to be code-signed, otherwise it won't run. Don't try to first run your compiled application before code-signing it. If you do, code-signing won't work either. You can find more information on code-signing here.

I thus ported my GPS command line utility that I used on 1.1.x before to 2.0.1 and tried it out on the 2.0.1 firmware. The video shows the result: there are no issues with accessing the NMEA data that the GPS module sends to the iPhone.

So this confirms that the GPS module will work on the new 2.0/2.0.1 firmware.

Just beware that there is no 2.0/2.0.1 version of the previously discussed GPS software packages (xGPS, RoadMap) currently available, but hopefully these will be available soon.

Put to the test!

A brief update for today:

The four CNC machined housings arrived this week and all of them make a nice fit as you can see in the photo (I masked off the LED opening with some tape to simulate the lens effect as those lenses were to small to be CNC'ed). I have been in touch with the housing manufacturer this week as well to iron out the last details of the drawings. They will start cutting steel upcoming week! Once that is done, I will visit them to take a look at the molds before we get our first parts.

I built three additional GPS modules this week as well and the new upload tool for A-GPS data from the manufacturer seems to work a lot better now. After having uploaded the latest A-GPS data to each of the modules, I have performed open/clear sky testing with the modules and am very happy with the results! Typical time-to-first-fix (TTFF) with A-GPS enabled is ~10sec average on a cold start. Average signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) is ~42dB (note that both the TTFF and SNR numbers are open/clear sky numbers and can vary in practice depending on surroundings and GPS satellite strength). Performance is thus very good for such a small unit! After the antenna tuning process, we might gain a little more on the SNR, but we will wait for those results first before concluding anything.

I also had to place a special purchase order (PO) for the high brightness/low current bi-color LEDs this week as they only had 200 in stock (delivery is scheduled for September 15, 2008). As I thought the green/orange color combination was a little too ordinary, I have chosen a blue/red LED which looks really cool. The blue LED will be on as power-on indicator and the red LED will flash when searching for satellites (it will be off after a GPS lock is found). So while searching for satellites, the combined blue/red LED will flash purple. Power consumption of the LED will be a little less than 1mA when the module is tracking. The rest of the module consumes ~36mA while tracking for a total of 37mA for tracking.

Power consumption, size and performance have all been traded off against each other, but it looks like the final results are pretty good in my humble opinion!

The estimated-time-of-arrival (ETA) for the modules is still set for the end of September. Let's hope there will be no further delays; thanks everyone for hanging in there!

What's (been) happening?

It has been a little while and as you can imagine things have been busy and very hectic. Here is an update on the various items:

1. Last Monday, the last revision of the PCB came back. Although I placed it as a rush order, it was late; it was supposed to have arrived the Thursday before. In the meantime I have built a new GPS module with it and tested its performance, which is up to spec now. This new module is shown in the photo (inside of the new housing prototype).


2. The biggest milestone that got done this week is the new two-piece housing design. This has pretty much kept me busy full-time since last week:
• New 3D CAD files (no logos) were completed and a new FDM prototype was made to verify that everything fits inside of it. I painted the prototype black, put the latest board inside and hooked the USB cable up. The result can be seen in the photo.
• The next thing in line was sending out the new 3D housing designs to get real prototype housings CNC machined out of solid ABS plastic (no FDM). These are needed to do proper antenna tuning of the board and the housing for optimum GPS performance. These housings are expected back upcoming week.
• Next I had to finalize the drawings for production and place the logos on them. This did not go without hick-ups and quite some time was waisted trying to get the 3D software to accept the graphics files. But eventually I managed to get everything imported.
• I am currently detailing the lens a little more to make sure that the LED light comes out properly and has a wide viewing angle. The final CAD files are due first thing Monday morning.
• A purchase order (PO) was placed for the injection mold making and a delivery of 1000 housings. The housings are to be completed by September 9, 2008.


3. I also received new GPS modules with updated firmware for this new PCB design. I had problems uploading A-GPS data to them. I thought it was a firmware issue, but after talking to the GPS vendor it turns out that the A-GPS upload tool that they provided had some problems, so they provided me with an updated version which performs better but still seems a little buggy. After we get a final OK from the vendor on the module configuration and firmware, we can place a PO as well (I hope this can happen this week).


4. Regarding contract manufacturers, I have converged on a candidate for PCB manufacturing and assembly with competitive pricing. I might have to make a few minor adjustments to the bill of materials, but after that we can get the ball running.

It looks like the Orange Gadgets website has been running pretty smoothly. As of now, 177 people have signed up so far for a total of 208 modules. Feel free to do some additional advertising among your family and friends as well as online.

Bingo!

Link for iPhone and iTouch users here


To top the week off with some more exciting news, what you see above is a live demo of the xGPS software that xWaves is working on. Note that all credit for this awesome application goes to them!

This software does not require a live internet connection!

Here is how to get this running:

1. I configured one of my modules at a baudrate of 19200. That is the baudrate the xGPS program currently runs at. Hopefully they will add in an option to custom set the baudrate the program uses for the serial port in the next version. So you will need to have a GPS module with the correct baudrate settings, otherwise it won't work. Plug your GPS module into the dock.


2. Go to the Installer.app on your iPhone or iPod touch and add in http://irepo.xwaves.net under the sources. Refresh the sources and then go to the Install menu and scroll down to Xwaves and install xGPS (the version I am running is 1.0p1). Quit Installer.


3. Start up the xGPS software and hit Maps. You'll end up somewhere in France. Zoom out with the small magnifier glass and move the map to your local area, then zoom back in again with the large magnifier glass.
   


4. Now drag with two fingers a red box for the map area that you want to download and hit the Download button. This will take a while depending on how large the map is. Make sure auto-lock on your iPhone/iPod touch is set to never and that you have enough battery left. I suggest downloading a small map area the first time (< 20mb). Cancel to go back to the main screen. The map is located in /private/var/root/Library/xGPS_map.db.
   


5. Then hit Enable GPS and voila, your GPS should be working! A pin will drop on your current location.


6. Take your phone, get into your car and have fun!
   

As this is still a very early version of the software, it is a little bit buggy when it comes to zooming in and out (double tap with one finger is zoom-in, double tap with two fingers is zoom-out). Also, the voice navigation is not working yet, although I did get it to display the purple-line directions on the map occasionally and the program spoke the first navigation direction out loud.

It looks like things are coming along very well in having a complete GPS navigation solution available.

So make sure up to sign up for one of the iGPS360 modules. The first production run will start very soon and will be a quantity of 1000 units. Make sure you are among the first 1000 to sign up!