Most of the AutoRouting GPS Navigation software for the pocketPC can also run on modern cell phones.

Portable car GPS Navigation systems like the TomTom Go Series, Navman iCN Series and others apply GPS Navigation in their internal programs. Together with their maps and street database, they are able to guide you from A to B, according to your preferences. But we can not say that the user applies GPS Navigation to find his way. Most users probably know nothing about navigation and certainly not about GPS Navigation. As long as you stay on the road, these devices do a wonderful job to guide you from one destination to another. But as soon as you leave the paved road, they will tell you “Go back to the road”. However, you should be well aware that they still know exactly where you are, but your position does not correspond with information in their database anymore. This means that in case of an emergency, you can always switch them on, wait for a good GPS fix and go to a page called “GPS” or “Satellites” or similar and you can read your position. If you are lucky enough to have cell phone coverage, even if your cell phone does not have a GPS chip, you can still communicate your position to the competent services, who will apply GPS Navigation to find you rather fast.

On pocketPCs you can run AutoRouting software like TomTom Navigator, Destinator, CoPilot Live, MapSonic, Route 66 and others. They do the same great job as the dedicated devices, with the extra advantage that for off-road usage, you can run other programs that allow you to do real GPS Navigation to find your way in the middle of nowhere.

If the GPS chip in the phone supports Assisted GPS (A-GPS) and the cell phone carrier offers this service, the GPS reception will be superior to all the above GPS solutions. The Time-to-first Fix (TTF, the time it takes the receiver to calculate a valid GPS position after it has been switched on) will be reduced to only a couple of seconds and it will be able to capture GPS signals where others let you down. For example in narrow streets with high buildings or in dense forests.

In this case the phones will need a storage card to load the maps. But there are also services that load the maps from a server via data communication with the phone. The big advantage is that you will always have the most up-to-date maps and do not need huge storage capacity on the phone. Of course you will have to pay for this service.

More and more cell phones are equipped with a GPS chip and more and more phones allow you to use the GPS information.

Editor: Wang

Article source:

http://www.gps-practice-and-fun.com/