iPad, Desire and Navicore

Falling short…

Since I got my iPad, the only thing I’ve really lamented is it’s lack of GPS and 3G.  Being the Wifi (read: cheaper) model, I had to make do with WiFi only.  As usual, my tendency to over-analyse and get the most out of anything I have got the better of me, and I started to look into how to plug the gaps in capability.  The spur was the lack of an official Geocaching app on the android OS as of yet.  Supposedly, there’s an Android version coming ‘Soon’ (and has been for about six months!).  At the moment, it’s definitely in ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’ territory.

Navicores and Desires

As you may or may not know, I recently took the leap from my trusty iPhone to the ‘other side’ – i.e. Android.  Specifically, I went for an HTC desire, and haven’t regretted the switch.  Seems as though the switch was a good call at the moment.  Android, you see, is much less locked-down than Apples iOS, which although it is excellent in itself, is rather crippled, mostly to keep the control of the OS firmly in Apple’s grasp.  Android, on the other hand, whilst not being completely open, is getting much more in that direction.  Out of the box, Android is less locked-down, with just a little techie work required, in a process called ‘rooting’, to make it more-or-less completely open (in an OS-sense).

With a cool little app called ‘Wireless Tether’ installed on the rooted phone, it created an ad-hoc wireless network for your device (laptop, iPad etc) to join.  Once joined, your device can use the internet connection of your Android phone, avoiding the need to take out a separate plan for your iPad. Bear in mind this may be against the terms and conditions of your mobile contract, but take it easy, and avoid using for VoIP and other network-angering activities too often, and you may escape notice – depends on how vigilant your provider is…

So that’t the 3G side of things sorted.

Where am I?

Next comes the GPS.  The iPad Wifi is equipped with Bluetooth, which should make it a doddle to pair a standard Bluetooth GPS unit with it, right?

Wrong!

Apple, in their infinite wisdom, have decreed that you can only use your Bluetooth for very limited activities, specifically, headsets, headphones keyboards and, ummmm, well, not much else really.  My lovely little Navicore SiRF III Bluetooth GPS unit has been languishing in a drawer for about the last two years or so.  Luckily, some clever developer has come up with an alternative Bluetooth stack for the iPad (and iPhone), which enables these devices to support accessories that they previously couldn’t.  This wonderful bit of code is known as ‘BTStack’.  The caveat?  Well, Apple wouldn’t like you doing this, so your iPad needs to be Jailbroken.  This is ridiculously easy to do (just google for it), and enables you to install homebrew apps.  The particular app in question is called ‘BTStack GPS’, and is available via Cydia (the homebrew app installer that gets installed when you Jailbreak the iPad).  It is one of the few ‘paid’ homebrew apps, and after furnishing the developer with all of $5.00 via paypal, you get your full-capable version of BTStack GPS.  A free version is also available, though all this does is display the position within the BTStack GPS app itself, and doesn’t pass it on to other apps.

Once installed, all you have to do is run the app, and pair it with your Standard SPP GPS receiver.  Once paired (and your reciever has a GPS signal), it causes the iPad to act as if you have built-in GPS.  All apps I’ve tried so far work flawlessly with it, including the official Groundspeak Geocaching app.  This is, currently, just the iPhone version running on the iPad, but it is sufficient until Groundspeak sort out an iPad version.

So there we go.  A WiFi iPad with 3G and GPS Connectivity.  Simple!