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...

Looking for distributors

All the preparations for the second production run are in full swing. Purchase orders have been placed and the new production run is scheduled to start in the week of April 20.

There are currently only 85 iGPS360 modules left for sale and if you wish to get yours without having to wait for the new run, you have to be quick. Once these 85 modules have sold, there could be some time that no modules are available till the modules from the second production run come in (most likely in the week of May 11).

In order to take of some of the work of my shoulders that comes with all of the order processing, I am looking for distributors all around the world who would like to resell the iGPS360 in their respective countries/areas.

There will be some requirements if you wish to become a distributor, but overall it should be a pretty straight forward job.

Most importantly, your relationship as a distributor with Orange Gadgets will need to be based upon mutual trust and truthfulness. I still believe in the honor system where people will actually do what they say they will do :-). I put a high value on ethics and morality in general and especially when I conduct business and I expect the same from a distributor.

In addition, customer service is very important and if your customers contact you for questions regarding their orders, you should respond to them promptly. The distributor-customer relationship should likewise be based on trust and honesty. This is how you make, keep, and bring in new customers for your business.

If you are interested in becoming a distributor, send a brief email to distributors@orangegadgets.com with some background information about yourself, any previous experience in distributing (not required), experience in setting up an online shopping cart (or any other way you wish to sell the module) and of course your full contact information.

The minimum order quantity for a distributor will be 10 modules and you should at least have an iGPS360 module yourself so you know its features and how it works.

Please only inquire if you are seriously interested in becoming a distributor. Processing, handling and shipping orders in a timely manner will require effort and dedication from your side.

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.

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

Still counting...

We are still counting down...

Another week of hard work has passed and of course as usual there is the good news and the less good news. Let's get the less good news over first.

Last week I received a third sample set of the housing, expecting that this would be the last sample set before running the real production housings. Unfortunately, the housing was still not exactly as expected and more touch-up work needed to be done. The manufacturer promised to get new samples to me by past Thursday, but this did not happen. He told me on Friday noon that the mold was ready for sampling again, so I hope to get the fourth sample set on Monday. I will be on the phone with him first thing Monday morning for a status report. This will impact the ETA of October 15.

Now for the good news. On all other fronts things have been progressing very well!

I have received the first production sample boards back and all are fully functional! Production of the remaining boards is currently in full flow.

Regarding the online shopping cart, integration with the PayPal website took much more time than expected, but this morning I finally made a breakthrough and from the testing I have done so far, it looks like the shopping cart is now properly being transferred to PayPal.

Everyone who signed up on the pre-order list should be receiving an email later this week with an order-link to the online store. If you haven't signed up yet, now is the time to do it!

This week I have also been working on automated testing of the modules (every module is quality controlled before it is shipped). I have been working on hardware related to the testing as well as software. The photo above shows a test-board for simultaneous testing of 8 modules (if module through-put is not fast enough the test capacity of the board can be expanded). Besides electrical testing and visual inspection already done at the board fabrication and assembly house, complete functionality of the GPS module will be tested as well. This includes USB and dock connector interconnect functionality, back-up battery check, visual LED inspection, GPS check (TTFF and SNR) and A-GPS functionality.

In the meantime, let's keep our fingers crossed for the next sample set of the housing!

Countdown

It's been a while and you probably have been wondering what is going on. Well, here is the latest update:

• PCB panels/boards
  Last week I received the first PCB panel with 100 boards on it (see photo above). As some small changes were made compared to the previous revision, I wanted to make sure that the panels are fully functional before committing them to production. I separated two boards from the 100pcs panel and built a module with one of the GPS engines that I still had available. Everything turned out to be working great.
  


• GPS engines
  The GPS engines also arrived last week and in order to make sure everything is OK with them as well, I assembled the second PCB board (from above) with the new production GPS engine. And guess what, everything is working as it is supposed to work.


• Antennas
  The antennas shipped a bit earlier as expected and arrived just today. I will do an inspection of them and then they will be delivered to production.


• Housing
  Last Friday, I also got the second set of samples of the housing. The logos are nicely touched up now and have a smoother finish than the rest of the housing, so they look really nice. Some other small things were not taken care of properly however and the mold will need another round of touch-ups. I am currently waiting for this new set of samples (expected tomorrow) before I can give the final approval to run production quantities.


• Online store/shopping cart
  I have almost completed the online shopping cart, but still have some issues with properly integrating PayPal into the checkout procedure. I hope to fix those in the upcoming few days. Once that is done, the shopping cart will go online. For all of you who are curious, I will keep you guessing at what other items will be in the store besides the GPS module...


• Shipping and handling
  I have also been getting ready to prepare for shipping of the modules to you. It's amazing how much overhead is involved in all this, from searching for envelops, labels, postage equipment, printing supplies to actually ordering all of them, both for domestic US shipping and international shipping. I hope I have got everything covered now.
  

The first fully assembled production parts are expected to become available next week. After that, each module will be fully tested before it is shipped out. The estimated date for shipping of the first modules will be around October 15.

As soon as modules come out of production and are tested, they will be shipped subsequently. Note that testing and shipping is going to take up most of my time starting next week, thus please understand that there can be some lag between the time you place your order and the time the module is actually shipped (as tested modules become available bit by bit from production). Once your order ships, you will receive a confirmation email.

Paid orders will be handled in sequence of how they are stored in the database. As of today, there will be enough units available in this first production run for everyone who has currently signed up on the pre-order list.

Housing mold and first production parts

On Wednesday I went to inspect the first production parts of the housing. I got a chance to take a few pictures of the production mold (see photo above). It's quite interesting to see how injection molded parts are made. The top and bottom of the picture show the housing bottom and top imprints on one side of the mold and the center circle is the feeding tube for the ABS plastic.

The manufacturer made about 25 sample parts for me to inspect and it looks like the housings came out very well. A few minor touch-ups on the mold itself are needed to perfect things a bit, but overall the parts already look very good (see picture below; you can click on it to zoom in a bit; due to the lighting condition of the photo, the zoom-in looks a little grainy). The eventual parts will be a matt over-all finish with a shiny imprint of the logos, just like the back of your iPhone.



I took five iGPS360 module boards with me to make sure all of them would fit the housings. Guess what.... all of them fit in perfectly so luckily no changes are required for PCB placement. I guess the time on housing design was well spent!

What else has been going on?

I have been working on getting the online shopping cart ready so you will be able to place your order pretty soon. You will be able to make payment through PayPal either with a PayPal account, or if you don't have a PayPal account, the PayPal site will give you the option to directly pay with your credit/debit card.

Regarding the iGPS360 module itself, the GPS engines are shipping next week and the tuned antennas the week thereafter. The PCB boards are expected back September 23 after which I will do verification testing before committing them to the reflow process which is scheduled for September 25. The assembled boards are expected back on October 8 so no change in ETA :)

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.

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!

Sign me up!

Allright! It has taken quite some time (I mentioned that some things were running in the background), but this new website is finally up and running!

I am hereby introducing you to:

www.orangegadgets.com


and



The logo in my earlier post is indeed an Orange. Why (an) Orange? Good question... why (an) Apple? Consider it a re-FRESH-ment, something different and FRESH from all the things out there. It also represents the color orange, a color which has left a trace of the history in my own life: it is the color of the dutch Royal House, most dutch sporters play in orange, the Orange is orange, and Orange Gadgets is located in Orange County...

With respect to the logo for the GPS module, I'll let the module speak for itself: "i (I) GPS 360 degrees or all-(a)round". The 360 degrees signifies that the gadgets we will bring to market can find application all-around.

So much for the logos. I hope you like them!

Regarding the website, I have incorporated a sign-up form on the site where you can sign up for the GPS module. Please only sign up if you are serious about buying one or more GPS modules. All data is logged into a database and will be used to determine future production quantities and to contact you once the modules are available for sale.

Since I have only done limited testing on the site so far with only a few different browsers (Firefox, Internet Explorer and iPhone Safari), please provide me with feedback on any broken links or other things that might not be functional.

Enjoy!

Micro USB cable samples have arrived!

I have received three samples of the USB-A to micro USB-B cable. The cables are 6ft long which should be plenty to hook up to your module from wherever you want. I have already tested all three cables with my modules and they are performing fine, including syncing of the iPhone from iTunes.

I will give you a brief progress update so you know where we are at:

• Housing: A housing manufacturer has been found. I have visited him twice and toured the facility and liked what I saw. They have also been very helpful in getting the housing prototypes done. I will be updating the housing design next and after that get a revised quote. Mold making will take 3-4 weeks ARO and then the first parts will be delivered one week after mold approval.
  
  
• PCB board assembly: I have received about half of the quotes that I requested. The remaining ones are expected by the end of this week. Typical lead time for 1000 units is about 4 weeks (this includes PCB fabrication and assembly).


• PCB board re-spin:Just today I sent out another PCB prototype board design that will address the somewhat lower performance on the last set of prototypes. This board is expected back mid next week. By the end of next week, I should have build another three prototypes with these new boards and have tested them for performance.


• USB cables: USB cable samples have been received and tested. An order will be placed tomorrow. Lead time is 6-8 weeks.


• Other: Some other things are running in the background in parallel... I'll keep you guessing at what that may be for now...
  

The Good and the Bad...

The photos show two rough prototype housings made on a fused deposition modeling machine (FDM). As the resolution of these machines is about 5-10mils (127-254um), the surface of the housing is not very smooth, but it is good enough to do form fitting of the board and dock connector. Also, the housings look white as the machine uses this color plastic to do the FDM. The ultimate housing will be black.

The next photo show you how the module will look on both the iPhone and iPod touch.



Now for the good news:

• All the clearances for board to housing were designed correctly and the boards fit nicely within the housing.


• I have also received the A-GPS modules in the meantime and built a new module with it and put it to the test. The way it works is as follows: you first download 7 or 14-day valid data to the module (this can be done through software), then use the module as normal. I have put this module to the test and compared it with a module without A-GPS. For the A-GPS module, the time-to-first-fix (TTFF) in open sky after a cold start was reduced from 43sec to 29sec (average over 5 measurements) with times as short as 16sec.


• A large volume of dock connectors for the modules have arrived!


• NDAs have been put in place with quite a few PCB contract manufactures and quotes are expected back soon.

Now for the bad news:

• It turns out, there is no way to get the plastic lens into the LED opening of the housing and have it sit straight and tight. So it's a good thing to have built these prototypes to do form-fitting before getting a housing injection molded for real. We will have to come up with something to solve the lens problem: the housing will be split in two half so that the lens can be inserted from the inside and the wall can be thickened locally for a straight and tight fit.


• Recent testing has revealed that the latest prototypes lack a little in performance compared to the earlier prototypes. A re-spin of the board can remedy this and will bring you the best performance possible (note that one board design is currently still in the pipeline and is expected back later this week for more performance testing). This will delay things a little, but not too much (about a week).

As you can see, this project is keeping me busy full-time, but all aspects of the project are progressing very well in parallel.

Software compatibility with RoadMap

Link for iPhone and iTouch users here.


Before we discuss the video, let me first mention that we hit 2000 votes yesterday!

This is again great news and I will update you on the manufacturing progress in a separate post (I have been very busy taking care of all the logistics behind the scenes and acquiring quotes for the manufacturing now that NDAs have been signed).

The video above shows a demonstration of the open source software RoadMap. This open source software was ported to the iPhone by Morten Bek. Of course it is a work in progress and not everything is perfect yet and neither are all features ported, but at least it shows the concept and future potential: 3D real time location mapping (with local maps on your iPhone/iTouch; no need to connect to the internet) and hopefully in the (near) future full voice-assisted navigation support.

I was very impressed by what Morten has accomplished so far!

It seems there are two branches of the RoadMap software. The one that Morten is working on and the one that Ehud Shabtai is working on. The second branch is a little further ahead maybe in terms of features, see this video, but unfortunately the language and Wiki for that branch is in Hebrew and it only comes with the map of Israel. Hopefully the two branches will be able to join efforts and converge into one great iPhone/iTouch application.

For Morten's branch, I downloaded all the maps for California from here and I can now locate myself on my iPhone without the need for the Maps.app or internet connection.

The video shows the main aspects of the RoadMap application:

• Arrow icon at left top: this switches between a fixed map view or a rotating map view. In the last case, your driving direction is always pointed upward and the map will rotate along with you.


• Satellite icon: its color varies, green for GPS lock and red for no GPS signal. Pressing the icon will move the center of the map to your current GPS location.


• Satellite screen: provides a view of the signal to noise ratio (SNR) for each satellite, longitude, latitude, elevation, speed, etc. This screen is accessible through the left button on the menu bar in the bottom (hard to see in the video)


• 2D/3D icon: pressing this icon will switch between a 2D view of the map and a more navigation like 3D view of the map (see end of video)


• Zoom in/out icons: pressing these buttons will change the scale of the map accordingly.


• There are some more buttons in the bottom bar, but not all of them are working. With one of them, you can email your currently logged GPS route to your friends.
  

Unfortunately, my video recording ended abruptly as the camera ran out of memory, so the 3D view of the map (which I think is really neat) is not that long. But I hope you get an idea of what it looks like.

Warning.....

That time has come again..... Apple's 2.0 firmware upgrade will be out shortly, so I would like to issue a warning....

To make it clear to everyone, if you intend on using the GPS module on your iPhone or iTouch, make sure NOT TO UPGRADE your iPhone and iTouch firmware for the time being. The same goes for iTunes. Leave it alone till it is confirmed that it is safe to upgrade.

In order to communicate with the GPS module, a jailbroken iPhone or iTouch is required. Upgrading to Apple's official 2.0 firmware will put your iPhone/iTouch back into a sealed environment again until the iPhone Dev Teams comes up with another jailbreak.

So if you would like to keep your options open, play it safe. Leave your current firmware alone and wait till the unlock development teams give you the green light.