After editing my first video with the new iLife’09 (sorry: yes, Mac only!) I did find out that Apple did a nice job with the new maps and backgrounds thing in the video editing software iMovie. It has the great feature to have an animated view of a trip on a world map now.

To my sadness I saw that they did only half the job. I tried to make an animation of my trip to the other side of the country to the 4th city of the country, Arnhem, as a test.
To my surprise this city could not be found in the system, other than the weather application in my iPhone 3G, that finds the smallest cities worldwide.

It would be nice if Apple puts (much) more places in the database OR make it possible to give your own coordinates on the globe. It is already possible to give the place of your choice another name, so that would work great.

Can I wait for the update?

With only WiFi the system will not be as accurate as with the assistance of these gsm cells. I am very curious how precise the location will be.

[via: AppleInsider]

Switching from one computer to another isn’t always easy. But finally switching platform from Windows to Mac OS, well, that’s a – well thought through – revolution!

The search for holy grail ;-) software is not over, but there is one flaw in the ocean of Mac software: gps and/or geocaching related software. I don’t say there is no software for Mac, but it is not as widespread as Windows software and some types of software aren’t just there (yet).

Magellan (who?) is forgetting about it totally (but about a lot of other things too!) at all and Garmin is starting to support Mac since a few months with different programs that are still in beta (BUT being worked on! :-D)

The most recent Mac OS X I did find (read: a few days ago) is GeoJournal. A program that makes it a lot easier to get you geocaching waypoints and cache info to your devices.

It can make the (by geocaching.com) delivered waypoints from GPX to Garmin, Magellan, Lowrance or even TomTom Navigator 5.x and can export to CacheMate, that is available for Palm for years and years now, and for Windows Mobile about 1 year I say from memory.

For Mac users that are into geocaching GeoJournal is for sure worth the try.

After quite a winter sleep (and some other things) this is big enough news to at least do my utmost best to make a new start: Engadget comes with the news that the expected new iPhone will have 3G and – YES – GPS!

Some specs:

• slightly thicker than the first gen iPhone

• the back will not be metal, but black plastic (hhhmmm)

• new haptic feedback on virtual keys

• 3G, third generation gsm technology

• finally a real GPS (and no virtual GPS)

With the old specs it never really got my attention, but now Steve, now I am watching!

via Engadget

It isn’t Apple itself that comes with an unique tablet computer running Mac OS X Leopard. Axiotron brings us the Modbook, a pen-based computer for the price of about $ 2290, not even that bad.
The nice thing is that the specs say the following:

Built-in GPS Module
Perfect for geotagging, navigating and mapping.

and later it says:

Global Positioning System
The Modbook is the only portable Mac solution that features a built-in Global Positioning System (GPS). The Axiotron Modbook GPS Module is based on the industry leading SiRFstar™ III chipset for faster first location fix times and improved tracking capabilities in challenging urban and outdoor environments.

My question would be whether this tablet computer is not a little bit to expensive for “challenging urban and outdoor environments“.
Would you take your ModBook for a walk?

Tags: apple, pen computer, mac, os x, axiotron, gps, navigation