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GPS maps / IPAD
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<blockquote data-quote="TexasHunter" data-source="post: 436384" data-attributes="member: 26082"><p>RDM416,</p><p></p><p>Great minds think alike. I too had the same idea. I was at Best Buy one day and realized I could buy an iPad and get 18 months no interest on an old BB account I had set up years ago. So I jumped in and bought the 3G/64gb model. I have recently opened a new hunting lease here in TX that is both remote and very rugged. I have wanted for some time a GPS with a large screen to mount in my Polaris Ranger but up to now had no luck finding a serious off road GPS. I would have settled for one of the car units with a 4 - 5" screen but they don't have the off road features we need. And the hand helds with the off road features are virtually unreadable due to the small screen. I have had two apps for a while on my iPhone, so I got way out back on our new ranch (read - no cell signal at all) and opened the iPhone apps. Low and behold they worked great w/o cell coverage. But the screen on the phone was just too small. So next trip, I take my new iPad loaded with TOPO Maps (an App Store app) and Motion X GPS (another App Store app). I love the TOPO app maps. They are exact copies of USGS Quad Sections. The app allows you to zoom in and out, locate your position, drop and label pins, switch to Google satellite view (which is cached as long as you have opened it previously for the same area while on a network) and a number of other features. You do need to pre load the necessary Quad Sections from TOPO but they are free, quick and easy to download. The only downside to this app is that it doesn't show your trail as a true GPS does. Not to worry, the MotionX app does everything a typical off road GPS would do. It requires that you pre download a map of the area your going to off the network and this process is a bit cumbersome. It offers numerous types of maps including Google and Bing road and satellite and it's own topo (which sucks compared to the USGS maps). You have to keep the app running in the foreground to keep track of your trail but if you stop, you can switch to the TOPO app and switch back to MotionX and it will keep going. Maybe the upcoming iOS release that supports multitasking will fix this and we can keep both apps open at the same time. I made a 23 mile trek around the new ranch which took about four hours and the iPad had no problem with battery life. Of course, I could have plugged it into the cig lighter on my ranger. I bought a mount and pedestal from RAM Mounts that holds the iPad on the Ranger dash super securely. I was using a Griffin cover but I have gone to the Otterbox Defender. I've also bought another GPS app from GAIA on the App Store and will be testing this next weekend which is the opening of the TX deer season. Our lease is 12.5 square miles (8000 acres) and the cell coverage is almost zero except around camp if your lucky. The 3G iPads are the only ones with the GPS chipset so don't buy the cheaper wifi model. All in all, this is a great solution and probably the only reason I would have bought an iPad.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="TexasHunter, post: 436384, member: 26082"] RDM416, Great minds think alike. I too had the same idea. I was at Best Buy one day and realized I could buy an iPad and get 18 months no interest on an old BB account I had set up years ago. So I jumped in and bought the 3G/64gb model. I have recently opened a new hunting lease here in TX that is both remote and very rugged. I have wanted for some time a GPS with a large screen to mount in my Polaris Ranger but up to now had no luck finding a serious off road GPS. I would have settled for one of the car units with a 4 - 5" screen but they don't have the off road features we need. And the hand helds with the off road features are virtually unreadable due to the small screen. I have had two apps for a while on my iPhone, so I got way out back on our new ranch (read - no cell signal at all) and opened the iPhone apps. Low and behold they worked great w/o cell coverage. But the screen on the phone was just too small. So next trip, I take my new iPad loaded with TOPO Maps (an App Store app) and Motion X GPS (another App Store app). I love the TOPO app maps. They are exact copies of USGS Quad Sections. The app allows you to zoom in and out, locate your position, drop and label pins, switch to Google satellite view (which is cached as long as you have opened it previously for the same area while on a network) and a number of other features. You do need to pre load the necessary Quad Sections from TOPO but they are free, quick and easy to download. The only downside to this app is that it doesn't show your trail as a true GPS does. Not to worry, the MotionX app does everything a typical off road GPS would do. It requires that you pre download a map of the area your going to off the network and this process is a bit cumbersome. It offers numerous types of maps including Google and Bing road and satellite and it's own topo (which sucks compared to the USGS maps). You have to keep the app running in the foreground to keep track of your trail but if you stop, you can switch to the TOPO app and switch back to MotionX and it will keep going. Maybe the upcoming iOS release that supports multitasking will fix this and we can keep both apps open at the same time. I made a 23 mile trek around the new ranch which took about four hours and the iPad had no problem with battery life. Of course, I could have plugged it into the cig lighter on my ranger. I bought a mount and pedestal from RAM Mounts that holds the iPad on the Ranger dash super securely. I was using a Griffin cover but I have gone to the Otterbox Defender. I've also bought another GPS app from GAIA on the App Store and will be testing this next weekend which is the opening of the TX deer season. Our lease is 12.5 square miles (8000 acres) and the cell coverage is almost zero except around camp if your lucky. The 3G iPads are the only ones with the GPS chipset so don't buy the cheaper wifi model. All in all, this is a great solution and probably the only reason I would have bought an iPad. [/QUOTE]
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