iPod Touch-Ultimate Chase Companion!

[John Hudson]

Just picked up a new iPod touch, mainly for my music. But, I've found the built-in WiFi to be incredible! The display clarity is excellent, and once you get used to it's keyboard, you can dash off email in no time.

To zoom in on the screen, all you do is double-tap the screen, or place two fingers on the screen and spread them apart.

I'm sitting in my car outside a Tim Hortons mooching their WiFi and writing this posting. It has a GPS locator with Google Maps built in, and a route planner.

The resolution is good enough to view SPC products in vivid detail, and there are a lot of great hacks and apps for it.

Would highly recommend one of these things. Now if I can just figure out a way to hook it up to WX Worx, I believe I've found the ultimate chase companion that fits in your shirt pocket!

Simply awesome!

John

 

[Dann Cianca]

Sounds awesome John ... when you said Tim Hortons, I didn't even have to look up at your location to know that you're in Canada. It was just having a conversation with a friend from Saskatchewan about Timmie's.

 

[Jerry Prsha]

Just picked up a new iPod touch, mainly for my music. But, I've found the built-in WiFi to be incredible! The display clarity is excellent, and once you get used to it's keyboard, you can dash off email in no time.

To zoom in on the screen, all you do is double-tap the screen, or place two fingers on the screen and spread them apart.

I'm sitting in my car outside a Tim Hortons mooching their WiFi and writing this posting. It has a GPS locator with Google Maps built in, and a route planner.

The resolution is good enough to view SPC products in vivid detail, and there are a lot of great hacks and apps for it.

Would highly recommend one of these things. Now if I can just figure out a way to hook it up to WX Worx, I believe I've found the ultimate chase companion that fits in your shirt pocket!

Simply awesome!

John

I own one as well and use WeatherTap on it. The zooming ability is incredible...

 

[Robert Edmonds]

Any one able to post what some weather related sites look like on it (NWS, models)? I would be interested to see. Probably not getting one, but thought it might be interesting to be intrigued by it.

 

[Jonathan Williams]

Here are some screens If you want a screen from another website let me know. One is from SPC- Mesoanalysis and UCAR CAPE The first one is kinda blurry because it was hard for the camera to focus. The second one is very clear. This is from an Iphone by the way and not a touch, but they are basically the same thing.

 

[Jerry Prsha]

I think we need to take video of the ability to flip and zoom in on the maps. That's the real draw to this device.

 

[Robert Edmonds]

Would highly recommend one of these things. Now if I can just figure out a way to hook it up to WX Worx, I believe I've found the ultimate chase companion that fits in your shirt pocket!



John

I haven't gotten one, but thinking about it more. Anyways I was wondering about your problem. I was thinking of a way you might be able to view WX WORX radar images. While it would still require another laptop running connected to a wireless router, I was wondering if there is a way to setup a page on a local area wireless network (like how I can access my local router through an i.p. address) that would keep frequent screen captures that you could access through a browser from the ipod touch. That is you would be connected to a wireless network that would not have internet, but instead you would access pages that could be updated by the laptop. It would at least give some freedom around your vehicle while keeping an eye on the weather despite not having access to internet. However, I don't know if this is possible, is it?

 

[Robert Edmonds]

I think I figured out how you could do what I said before. The only thing is to do the automatic screen capture I couldn't find any freeware that could do it. After some playing around I found a way that a laptop could save screen captures to a page that could be accessed through a browser. If you're interested I could email anyone on how it should work, just pm me...

 

[Andrew Ryan]

I haven't gotten one, but thinking about it more. Anyways I was wondering about your problem. I was thinking of a way you might be able to view WX WORX radar images. While it would still require another laptop running connected to a wireless router, I was wondering if there is a way to setup a page on a local area wireless network (like how I can access my local router through an i.p. address) that would keep frequent screen captures that you could access through a browser from the ipod touch. That is you would be connected to a wireless network that would not have internet, but instead you would access pages that could be updated by the laptop. It would at least give some freedom around your vehicle while keeping an eye on the weather despite not having access to internet. However, I don't know if this is possible, is it?

You could leave your laptop at home and access it through logmein.com on your ipod touch or phone. I have no idea how well it would work but I would imagine pretty well.

 

[Robert Edmonds]

You could leave your laptop at home and access it through logmein.com on your ipod touch or phone. I have no idea how well it would work but I would imagine pretty well.

Ugg... I knew people would get confused. I was trying to say describe a situation how you don't have internet (i.e. no wifi network connected to the internet), but you do have WX WORX, but you want to view images from WX WORX on say your ipod touch(it could be anything that can't directly connect to WX WORX), that can only access stuff through a internet browser (like the ipod touch).

I should actually make a whole new thread because this would not be exclusive to this device. What I figured out to do is, on top of being able to automatically share images from WX WORX, I could also set up a page that people could access once wirelessly connected to the network which I could setup in my car(even though the network does not have access to the internet) which would have weather related stuff that I could load on to it the night before. PM me if interested...

 

[Robert Edmonds]

Ok, so I broke down and got one. Got a summer job so will be chasing less, got some extra money I wasn't expecting, thus I got one.

Anyhow, I also got a 25 dollar router on ebay. Just set everything up, like described above. Here is the result...

Later when I'm chasing I'll post to others how to connect to the network to get the images. Anyone will be able to see the desktop even with a pc or mac or ipod, and html browser. Note the network does not have internet.

 

[John Hudson]

Congrats on getting the Touch, Rob. Nice job hooking everything up; I knew there had to be a way, but wasn't sure about the method.

One big advantage to doing this: while you're outside your car shooting video of that tube you just bagged, you can take the touch out of your pocket and do a quick check of how things are unfolding without even leaving your camcorder.

Sweet.


John

 

[Eric Flescher]

thanks for posting that info about the touch

Thanks for the info about the touch. I can't afford the iPhone because of the AT&T services it needs but the wifi and the other capabilities are a nice way to still get internet capability via wifi.

How does the GPS work on it?

I was at the Apple store in Kansas City, MO. I was looking at the the iPhone and the way the screen expands and enlarges is real cool. Sure beats trying to look at the webstuff on part of my treo 650 screen.

However there is a mac oriented program that can be used on the treo and I am looking into seeing if I could do web stuff with that.

 

[Jonathan Williams]

How does the GPS work on it? As the complicated part or how well does it work? I'll answer both.

Its not your true typical GPS you would see on delorme. I don't even think you can call it a gps because it doesn't use satellites. That being said it uses a triangulation method which takes 3 cell phone towers and finds a general vicinity that you are in. triangulation method is pretty accurate.

When you press the button to triangulate your position it zooms into some streets and and then puts a circle around them. You are usually always in this circle knowing where you are. The bad thing about this method is you have to manual press the button, and if you do not have three cell phone towers it will not work.

Having three cell phone towers within about 10 miles is very hard to find unless you are in a big city. On the interstate it doesn't work very well unless you are going through a more populated city. I don't think it would be very useful for a chase either. I only find it useful if i am completely lost and don't know what city I'm in.

 

[Warren Faidley]

If you plan to buy an iPhone, make sure to buy the newer models that have GPRS coverage. The older iPhones may not have this feature and limit the data coverage. I have yet to try an iPhone for gathering data via GRPS alone, not using the usual 3G data services, which are quite limited in major portions of the alley. Has anyone used the GPRS system alone (not with EDGE or 3G) to acquire data yet? Does the iPhone show what system it's using to connect for data? This would be quite helpful. I know it's slow but it works, even in eastern CO and portions of western Kansas. ATT has a coverage map on their main site. My old Mot. V551 gets data coverage almost anywhere where voice service is received.

Thanks....

Warren