Woodlife

“You never guess what happened to me?”

“Don’t tell me, you went into a Supermarket”.

“Don’t be silly. It wasn’t that bad. I got mugged”.

“What!!”

“I was standing outside the phone shop when someone rushed out and took my credit card. They ran back into the shop, came back out with my card and pushed an Apple iPhone box under my arm. Look!”

“Very funny”.

Despite cutting my computer teeth on a Commodore 64 and ever since fiddling about with a few computers, mobile technology has sort of evaded me. Until now that is. So what has turned Pablo from a mobile (cell) phone technophobe to A SAD phone owner (All Singing All Dancing – I’m going to copyright that!)

Well, it’s a number of things. Here’s a list:

• It has email.
• It can connect to the internet wirelessly at home or by 3G or Edge when out.
• It has GPS.
• It has a camera/video camera
• You can buy and watch feature films
• You can get and listen to audio books
• It has an iPod
• It has a photo album viewer
• It has a voice recorder
• It has some excellent and cheap applications.
• It has text.
• It even makes phone calls.

Some of the applications (called apps in case you didn’t know) are very good and believe it or not, some are suited for outdoor use. I believe the cry in Geeks-ville is “there’s an app for that!” So here’s my suggestions for some ‘shrafting apps:

Trip Journal

– Using the phone’s GPS, this application will track your movements over any distance. You can create waypoints, make notes or take photos if your trip. The track is overlaid onto Google maps on the phone and you can export it to Google Earth, saving your trip to your computer. The GPS accuracy is nothing like a dedicated unit but it isn’t bad. I got mine down to 24 feet in the woods. It’s surprising where you wander and how far you actually go. This app is great for trips abroad as well as local stuff.

GPS Kit

– This is more like a functional GPS unit. Put in waypoints and navigate between them or measure distance, speed, altitude etc.

Compass

This seems like a gimmick but it actually works due to the built-in magnetometer. The normal rules apply such as using it away from magnetic fields. Most of the GPS apps have their own version, but this one is quite pretty!

Chirp

– This application has 80 birds and their songs or alarm calls. I tested it out on a Robin who was extremely confused but then started to sing back to the phone.

Knot guide and Knots

– two very good applications that show you how to tie knots.

Maps

– Google maps, which together with the phone’s GPS will show you where you are and what direction you’re going both on a route map or satellite maps. The benefit of this over a normal GPS is that if there’s no GPS signal, the phone triangulates your position from cell masts. This app is pre-installed when you buy the phone.

Star Walk

– A simply stunning application that shows you what stars and planets are in the sky with constellation names and drawings. You point the phone at the sky (it uses the phone’s accelerometer and GPS) and it shows you exactly what you are looking at based on your position and the direction you’re facing. A great way to learn the night sky.

TreeId

– British tree identification described and searchable by bark, shape of tree, height, flowers, leaves, nuts etc. Not a bad little reference app.

Weather Pro

– One of many excellent weather applications. This one shows satellite and radar sequences, pressure, wind, etc.

Birds of UK and Ireland

– A fully featured electronic reference book of 250 birds of the UK. Not cheap (gettit?) but saves a large reference book in your pocket (also has bird calls, distribution maps, drawings, photos).

Radio

– Not strictly an outdoor application, but some people like to get a live weather forecast from a local radio station when out on the hills.

Memory map

– Ordnance Survey maps for the phone. The app isn’t all that stunning for the price (£19), but you get quite a few credits for 1:25000 or 50:000 areas of your choice. What is good is that it works off-line so if you loose any signal you’ve still got the map. Of course it works with the GPS so it tracks your position and you can set waypoints like the other GPS apps. An annoying downside is when you’re following a track, the map shows only north up and not direction up. Perhaps an upgrade will fix this.

I also have a variety of other applications on the phone like a journal, daily tracker, exercise tracker, dictionary, newspaper readers, twitter, blog publishing, Paypal and Ebay and errr… a pet fish called Eric. Unfortunately, the only animal tracking application I’ve come across is one for North America.

The trouble with the phone is that it sucks its own battery dry especially if a GPS app is on for any length of time. There are ways of reducing battery consumption but you really need to charge it every night. I shelled out another £28-00 for a USB battery pack which can charge the phone 3 times from empty. This is enough for 4 – 5 days in the woods without turning the phone off.

Another problem could be the weather. An outdoor phone it ain’t therefore a sturdy case or AquaPac case is required.

This certainly isn’t a outdoor tool and it’s certainly not traditional by any means and any old cheap phone would suffice for emergency purposes; but if you’re going to be A SAD phone owner, it may as well be this one!