Geocaching is available now.

[ardoreal]

Groundspeak released their Geocaching app into the Market.

Geocaching > Groundspeak's Geocaching Android Application

Great little app.

[edit]
Questions, does it require a monthly membership or premium membership? No

Does it work great on _____ device? So far, Droid X has some issues. They are updating it frequently, so don't expect that to be an issue for long. Most devices are having good results, this app was built on 2.+ libraries though, your 1.x device may have some issues but they did try to iron some of those out.

Can it use turn by turn navigation? YES! It's awesome too, it exports the coords to Google Maps and you can use navigation from there.

Will it eventually get feature parity to the new iPhone version? Yes, here's how it's all laid out [censor turned on by having agreed to not divulge how they're going to go about getting that going].

The compass is t3h suxX0rz!!! Wtf, over? Lemme guess, you're on an HTC phone right? The magnetometer that HTC chose to use is not as sensitive to tesla's (magnetosphere field strength) as some others. I do know that most moto phones have more sensitive compasses, Samsung devices generally test well....

How good is my ________ phone's gps accuracy going to be? If you're on any of the Moto Droids, you're using TI's navilink tech. It is first-rate and absolutely rawks. Next to a dedicated handheld like a PN-40, they had the same accuracy with the Droid having a SIGNIFICANTLY faster warmup thanks to aGPS where available. If you're on a Snapdragon based phone that uses Qualcomm's gpsone engine (like the Incredible or the Nexus One)..... well it won't be *terrible*......it's just not going to be great....very often..... uhhhh......

What about when I go out of signal coverage, what am I suppose to do offline? Well, they thought of that too. You can run a pocket query beforehand if you know you're going to be in a sparse coverage area. You can also just do your business via wifi (example, if you're going out of country and don't wanna roam) and save for offline use. The other cool thing is, let's say you find a cache way out in the sticks and want to share something cool in the log before you forget, you can go ahead and save your note for submission later when you're back in civilization. You actually save them to a batch, and there's a place in the app to submit offline notes.

Since when are you Mr Genius smarty pants and got some of this info? I'm one of the beta testers

 

[DiCon]

Great! Have to try it right away...

So far I used a combination of GeoBeagle, bcaching.com and automated Pocket Querys mailed to bcaching. This worked really great, especially when you don't have internet in some woods (i.e. when you are abroad).

I hope, Groundspeak's App fills in the gap of caching somewhere without preparing a PQ

Edit: $9.99? Are they kidding? I am not a premium member to pay additional $10 for an Android App! I think GeoBeagle is fine...

 

[deercreek]

I like that you can enter field notes and submit those instead of always having to directly post logs. I don't do TFTC types of logs, and I don't always want to sit down and type out a decent log right when I find a cache, so being able to enter field notes is great. They've got some Droid X bugs to work out. Anything that utilizes Maps crashes the app, as does clicking on the Attributes link in a cache description. I thought I would stick with the free apps I've been using, but I made this the first app I've paid for.

 

[Paladin]

Is there also a monthly fee to use the website/services once you buy the software or can pull the data free once you buy it?
I see the member info for the web site: https://www.geocaching.com/Membership/default.aspx
I am just unsure if you NEED to be a premium member to use the Android software.

 

[Hunts99]

Is there also a monthly fee to use the website/services once you buy the software or can pull the data free once you buy it?
I see the member info for the web site: https://www.geocaching.com/Membership/default.aspx
I am just unsure if you NEED to be a premium member to use the Android software.

Downloaded and made this my first app purchase. From messing around with it in the hotel (traveling this week) you do not need to be a Premium Member to enjoy all the goodies (minus the premium caches). Need to have time to give it a full run, but so far so good. Cache on! HSF

 

[wiicked26]

why does C:Geo violates Groundspeak's TOS?

 

[stolirocks]

I don't care if c:geo supposedly violates their tos, it is still the superior app.

Sent from my EVO 4G using Tapatalk

 

[ardoreal]

I don't care if c:geo supposedly violates their tos, it is still the superior app.

Sent from my EVO 4G using Tapatalk

I don't think so at all. The offline features, pocket query features, trackable, and photo features make c:geo look old.

The devs wanted to compete directly with stuff like c:geo, if you put the app through its paces and really use it you'll find it's a better option than c:geo.

Not to put c:geo down though, if it weren't for c:geo, the devs would likely have been a lot less motivated. Kudos to the guy for giving it away for free too, can't knock that.

I also updated the op to answer some folks' questions that I've seen in the thread.

 

[ardoreal]

Word is that Groundspeak won't ban the app for scraping the site too, instead they'll just ban the accounts of people the violate the TOU's. Geobeagle is a great app that is perfectly compliant, but if the c:geo dev doesn't change how the data is fetched so that it's compliant, you risk the ban hammer.

I agree though, the the c:geo compass is way nicer. The Groundspeak app uses a compass pretty much the same as geobeagle, but they did a custom skin job on it. I think it works though, usable, but not the best.

 

[easy1jay]

While it's cool that the folks at Geocaching.com got around to making an official app for Android, $10 just seems a little steep for me, while there are a few equivalent apps available for free, or at a much lower cost, on the Market. Not to mention the amount of support they already have from premium membership fees.

I'm aware of the ToS, but it's a bit confusing if you read it, I thought the whole idea of the site is to get people outdoors and go geocaching, even if they don't use their official app. We're still saving trees.

Either way, it's a great site and I hope it can encourage more people to go out there and try this activity.

Edit: For spell fail.

 

[ardoreal]

Regardless about the "idea of things" man up and agree or disagree with something. Don't be two faced and justify it by saying something like "well the idea of it is suppose to be". You are a premium member, great, and you helped pay their electric and food bills. If you want to use it for free, they provision that for you. It's not a "pay to play" service.

The thing is, if you want to support them extra, they give you some perks for it. That and the guy behind c:geo really is putting a work of passion out there for us. I wish they'd just give him access to the API and ask him to put a "pro" version whereby they get a cut of the $$$, then everyone wins.

They have larger plans in the future though, too bad they didn't just hire him instead.

Regardless, I still feel that the official app is the best solution. I think there's nothing wrong with c:geo too though, just use at your own risk.

 

[Paladin]

I have had an account on Geocaching.com for years, 2006, but honestly never use it. I just never really got around to going out and caching. I just tried playing with c:geo and it logged in just fine etc... So now I have to ask, since I never used the account I have nothing to really loose using c:geo but then again it is nice to have an account that has been there so long..

I really don't need the official app as I won't really use it much. I intend to try to go caching but until I would do it on a regular basis it is not really worth the money right now.

Then again I wish I could buy the official app and that would also allow c:geo access without worry so I could use both until I figure out what I need etc...

I also agree though that if it is simply scraping the site there really is not a way they would know probably.
I did DL all the caches around me in a 5 mile radius, about 120, in c:geo so I can use it offline just in case ii

Another question is can Android phones get WAAS correction somehow for accuracy?
Maybe over the Internet? Is it even needed?

 

[ardoreal]

No waas. In fact I don't know of any phones that support waas, let alone android phones. I can say that it might be nice to have in mountains and such but I've never needed it.

 

[Paladin]

The sad part is I bought a Garmin GPSMap 60CSx for geocaching but never used it. It is still one of the best rated stand alone GPS units out there. The phone just makes it so much easier though with all the information right there, just click a cache and go. ii

 

[TBarnhardt]

I don't really see myself paying $10 for an app so I can access the premium membership I'm already paying for. I would think my paying them for a membership covers the overhead of c:Geo scraping their site once in while.

 

[mynetdude]

When I saw the $10 fee for just the official app... I already pay $30/year for the premium membership, the least they could do is offer a discount to premium members (like $5????)) and then for those who who continue to renew their premium membership should get free updates ($2 fee per year make that $32/yr) and for those who do not have a premium membership can pay $10 + $5 year for each update.

I actually liked c:geo, you could post to 4square and twitter, but I have been having problems with c:geo working on my EVO,when I hit the back button it exits the program rather than going to the main screen and I have had to uninstall/reinstall to fix this and each time it breaks.

I don't understand what is wrong with webpage scraping? Does it eat that much more bandwidth? we're talking about text here. Why can't Groundspeak make a deal with this dev (he is from eastern europe somewhere)

I am debating whether or not I want to even spend $10, I most likely will... stupid as it is... I may not continue with my premium membership if that's the case. I am NOT going to give them more money when I am just about to renew my premium membership... I have other dues to pay too.

 

[deercreek]

They felt that they needed to keep the pricing consistent with the iPhone app(both cost $9.99). In this case the main thing that's wrong with web scraping is it is against their Terms of Use. I would imagine that the Live Map feature of c:geo could do a fair amount of site hammering.

 

[bclinger#IM]

I agree with the above. We pay for premium membership (mine just expired and frankly do not know if I will up again) and then $10 for the application. Heck, the application c:geo does not impact their site, though they say it does. It does nothing more than what a user does with their browser. My regular GPS is a Garmin Oregon 550T.

Make the app free and encourage people to use it to the fullest extent by joining and going premium. Oh, well.

 

[deercreek]

So you can simultaneously click on 20 links, immediately record coordinates and other info from those 20 links, and then do it again as your position changes? That takes amazing coordination. While a user can get the same information c:geo does, it would take significantly longer to do so, and you probably wouldn't be doing this over and over to feed a live map.

 

[mynetdude]

They felt that they needed to keep the pricing consistent with the iPhone app(both cost $9.99). In this case the main thing that's wrong with web scraping is it is against their Terms of Use. I would imagine that the Live Map feature of c:geo could do a fair amount of site hammering.

Well OTHER than the AUP says its wrong, yeah now that you mentioned scrapping from the Live Map... I'll say that probably makes server loads too heavy as you said.