Turn the GPS on or off to use Bluetooth GPS Provider

Some users are confused if they should disable the internal GPS or not to make things work.

The truth it that it depends on the app you intent to use. Some apps check if the GPS is enabled in the settings. So you HAVE TO ENABLE the inernal GPS to use those apps (e.g. Google Navigation).

You don't have to worry about that because if the Bluetooth GPS Provider is active (the satellite dish with the blue bars is shown) it completely replaces the internal GPS. The internal GPS is only active if you see the sat dish with the green bars in the status bar.

Bluetooth GPS Provider 1.0.5

A new version is available via the market. Changes include:

• more robust GPS connection
• satellite signal strength is shown for each satellite in view in the main view
• after long press on the signal strength display also the live NMEA sentences are shown in the main view
• settings are now available in a separate view (press MENU button in the main view)
• it's now possible to use Tasker to start or stop the service. In Tasker choose "Misc" / "Action Intent" / Action = "start_btgps_provider" / "stop_btgps_provider", Target = Service

Bluetooth GPS Provider 1.0.1

Version 1.0.1 is just a minor update. The only difference is that after using Bluetooth GPS Provider the previous state of the internal GPS is restored.

That means if you turned the internal GPS off it's off even after using the app. If it was on it's turned on again.

Bluetooth GPS Provider for Android

I'm pleased to announce that Bluetooth GPS Provider for Android is available on the Android Market.

Now it's possible to use an external bluetooth GPS receiver with your Android 2.x phone. This gives you better battery life and in general the external receivers are a lot better in terms of accuracy.

Every NMEA capable GPS receiver should work. Unfortunately not all applications are compatible with the app but a lot are.

Apps which are reported compatible include:

• Maps
• Maps Navigation
• Railnavigator
• Layar
• Google Sky Map
• c:geo
• Navdroy
• Trimble AllSport GPS
• My Tracks
• Run.GPS
• AlpineQuest
• MotoNav
• RunKeeper
• ...

Apps which are not compatible (yet) include:

• Sygic Mobile Maps
• Wikitude
• Taiwan NaviKing

I hope to increase compatability in future releases and I'm currently in the process of investigating what prevents the incompatible apps from working with the external GPS receivers. The later is especially relevant for activities like Geocaching and similar applications.

If you are unsure if your favorite app is supported just download Bluetooth GPS Provider and try it yourself. In the Market you can give it back (uninstall) within 24 hours and you won't be charged by Google. I think that's a fair deal.

If you find more supported or unsupported apps it would be great to hear about that. Just send me a mail so I can update the list of supported / unsupported apps here.

CacheTrack 1.11

If you are using any older version of CacheTrack please upgrade to 1.11.

Especially if you are experiencing problems when opening GC.com's GPX files.

Get CacheTrack here: CacheTrack

CacheTrack Version Confusion

Since November 11th Groundspeak is using the old GPX format again. (see http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=235742 ). Because of that version 1.10 of CacheTrack can't be used for GPX files downloaded after that date.

So my advice is to use 1.9 again. The next version will be more agnostic regarding the differences between these two formats.

CacheTrack 1.10

Now CacheTrack can read GPX files created by Geocaching.com again. The problem was that Geocaching.com changed their XML format. Please note that you can not use old GPX files with CacheTrack 1.10 and later anymore.

see CacheTrack

My new blog

My new blog is available at: http://blog.mobile-j.de

In the future I will use this site to more and more focus on my shareware / freeware projects and use the blog to write about software development.

ProGuard 4.4 is doomed

The first release of CacheTrack 1.9 was broken. The binary you can now download is fixed. The problem was that this version wasn't able to draw OSM maps anymore.

The problem wasn't my fault but was caused by ProGuard 4.4. In the past I used version 4.2 which worked pretty well. Now I switched back to version 4.2 and everything is fine again.

So if you (as a developer) run into problems with your obfuscated production code try to use version 4.2 of ProGuard and save yourself of a lot of trouble.

What to do if CacheTrack won't load OSM maps anymore

If you experience problems when loading OSM maps you should try to clear the cache. (One of the options on the main screen of CacheTrack).

In many cases this will help you.