However, if you’ve been reading my posts lately you’ve probably seen more stuff written about phones than dedicated GPS units… a sign that the times they are a changin’.  Dedicated handheld units are being phased out and fancified smartphones with AGPS chips in them are taking over.

So if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

And I’ll be honest, smartphones (like my Motorola Droid) can do a lot of really cool stuff that regular old GPS units can’t.

Here are my 10 favorite Android Apps (or Droid Apps) that use GPS (all are free or at least offer free versions):

1. Google Maps Navigation Beta – Free GPS Navigation software that doesn’t suck.  In the three months I’ve been using this software I can tell you it’s getting better… slowly but surely.  Will it completely replace PND units from Garmin and TomTom – not yet.   And it’s not up to Navigon levels either (iPhone app), but for a free app, it sure as heck has a lot going for it… and the always up to date maps sure are great.
2. Carr Matey – Ever parked your car but can’t for the life of you remember where you parked it?  I know I’ve done it several times (especially at airport long term parking) which is why this app is so darn cool.  Just park you car, fire up Carr Matey and “drop anchor.”  It’s a great app and the pirate theme is just fun.  You can load up a map to find your car or use the compass and feel like you’re searching for buried treasure.  It even has a built in timer so if you’re at a parking meter, you can set the timer and make sure you get back to your car before time is up. There are other apps like Car Locator but that one costs money and does the same thing but it does add support for parking garages.
3. WeatherBug – Android 2.1 has it’s own weather app built in but until we’re all on 2.1, Weatherbug is perfect.  The latest version will track weather (require you to install an additional plugin, but it literally takes 15 seconds to do) as you travel so you always know what the temperature is.
4. Google Goggles – In an attempt to get people to use Android, Google has developed some really nifty apps.  Google Goggles is one that will seriously blow your mind.  Take it downtown or any place there are a lot of businesses.  Now fire up Google Goggles.  Point your phone’s camera at any business – Layar will pull up the businesses name, phone number, and reviews (great if you want to eat at a restaurant but don’t know if it’s any good).   You can also fire it up and find all the pizza places, coffee shops, or apartments in a certain area.  Definitely fun to play with and actually useful.
5. Where – This is another great app for finding local businesses.  You can find what’s playing at the movie theater and what the closest one is.  It also will tell you the price of gas, and again, how far away each gas station is… and it does a whole lot more – well worth downloading from the Android Market.
6. My Tracks – If you like to go hiking, biking, or running, you’ll love this app.  You can record the route you took, how long it took you and you can export the data to Google Spreadsheets.  It sounds simple but it’s really cool – try it out!
7. Instamapper / Where’s My Droid – Should you ever lose your phone or, heaven forbid, it gets stolen.  These are apps you’ll want to have installed to find it.  Both allow for remote activation so you can send a text to your phone via your computer or a friend’s cell to figure out where the heck your phone is.  And if you’re like me and keep your phone on vibrate or silent all the time, Where’s my Droid has a feature that will turn the speakers on max so you can hear it no matter what setting it’s on… great if your phone is hiding in your couch cushions.
8. Spectrek Light – I’m pretty sure this is the only game I have on my phone.  This is an augmented reality ghost hunting game.   Basically you use your phone’s GPS and camera to hunt and capture virtual ghosts.  Go find a park, field, or forest and give it a try… lots of fun.  (will keep kids busy for hours too)
9. Locale – Have you ever been in a movie theatre, class, or a meeting, and had your cell phone go off?  Locale is built to fix that problem.  You can set your phone to go to silent at certain times of the day or based on certain locations.  For example, you can tell Locale that any time you’re in or a movie theater to put your phone on silent – that way if you forget to do it, you don’t have to worry about it.  It can also work in reverse, if you’re in a place where you need your ringer on all the time so you can hear it, you can do that as well.
10. Google Sky Map / Celeste Lite - Have you ever wanted to impress your date by telling here where the constellations are in the sky?  Of course you have!  This app will help you do just that.  Take your phone outside at night and point the camera skyward.  Google Sky Map will tell you what you’re looking at.   It also identifies planets and the moon.   I also put Celeste in this list.  It tracks the sun, moon, and planets (the free Lite version only tracks the sun and Saturn).   It can tell you where the sun will be at a certain time and where it currently is in the sky even if you’re inside or it’s cloudy.

Have an app you feel belongs in this list?

Did I make any egregious omissions?

Just want to chime in and add your two cents?

Post a comment and let me hear it.

So I got one of those fancy Droids a couple weeks ago and when you go from a Razr to a Droid, everything is cool and fancy.  I honestly don’t know how a lot of the features that are “gee whiz” cool compare to other smartphones like the iPhone.  They’re all cool to me, but wow is the Facebook and Google Voice integration slick.

Anyway, instead of posting my thoughts about the phone side of things, I figured I’d post about the thing I am qualified to review – the GPS, specifically Google Maps Navigation Beta.

I’m on my fourth GPS device and have extensively researched others.  In fact, I decided to get the phone with its built in navigation instead of one of the new high end TomToms.

So I have fairly high standards for what I want in a GPS device, and I have to say that Google has managed to include cool features I would never have thought to ask for… unfortunately they also neglected to include some fairly important industry standard features.

I like it, I love it

As you’d probably expect, Google Navigation uses their Google Maps data for all the routes.  The maps are up to date (I hated updated buying updates to my old ones) and since it accesses their online database, they’re about as up to date as you can get.  Up to date maps doesn’t sound like a big deal until your GPS device tries to convice you to take an impassible snowmobile trail in the middle of nowhere Colorado – then you’ll appreciate having accurate maps J

The voice search is also awesome.  It knows where businesses are (even local ones, not just chains) and can find them with a simple search.  My car broke down a week ago and I was able to find a towing service close to me (I didn’t want to be stuck there any longer than I had to), and call them using the same device… and I was able to read reviews before I made any calls.

It can find landmarks, categories of businesses, schools, pretty much whatever you want.  And if you decide to type in the information, it’s not all that picky and can even figure out what you meant to spell if you spell something wrong (just like their search engine can).

However, one thing it can’t do is navigate to someone in your contacts list even if their address is in your phone.  My guess is that feature is coming, but so far it doesn’t do that.

Google Street View is pretty cool especially as it can display a picture of the intersection and a picture of the business you’re navigating to.  However, I’d like to more advanced instructions for complicated interchanges.  For example, my last GPS would tell me to take and exit and which lane I needed to be in when necessary.  It isn’t necessary all that often where I live but let me tell you, it’s immensely helpful when it does come up.

You have the option to use Satellite view just like with Google Maps on your computer and you can even overlay the terrain if you’re out hiking.

And one feature I really like was the ability to navigate “nearest” whatever.  For example, you can tell Google Maps Navigation to “navigate to nearest movie theatre” and it will.

Fail!

Night mode

While there are some excusable omissions, one that is just a complete brain fart is the lack of a night mode.  Honestly, I was expected that the phone would not only have a night mode, I figured it’d automatically kick in when the sun set based on its location – the phone has a lot of location aware features like that and I figured Google Maps Navigation would have that… it didn’t.

I learned this on a trip from Nebraska to Wisconsin.  Fortunately, I don’t need directions for the trip, so when it got dark and night mode didn’t kick in and I couldn’t find it in the menus, it wasn’t a problem for me just to turn the program off and finish the drive sans navigation.

But seriously, no night mode?  I’m assuming this oversight will be fixed in the near future, but as far as I’m concerned, the program should never have left alpha testing without that feature.

Update (Feb 2010) – Night mode exists now (came as part of Google Maps 4 app update) and yeah, it works like I expected it would – location aware and based on sunset and sunrise.   Glad to see they added it.

Speedometer

Another industry standard is how fast you’re going.  And TomTom and Garmin devices also happen to know the speed limits where you’re driving and can tell you when they change.  Google doesn’t even display how fast you’re going.  I know, I know, that’s what the speedometer on your car is for.  Well, I find the one on cars is frequently off by 1-3 mph.  On a long trip, a 3mph difference is half an hour I could have saved and the GPS speedometer is always extremely accurate.

Data Connection Required

Here’s another real head scratcher.  The need to have a data connection for navigation.  I can totally understand the need to have a data connection for things like Street View, Satellite View, and some of the more advanced features – it’d just be too much to store on the phones memory and updating would be a pain.  However, needing a data connection for even basic navigation is bad design.   Google needs to offer an option to download the maps to your phones memory card and to use those maps when data is lost.  GPS and navigation needs to work in the middle of nowhere.

Those are my biggest complaints.   But here’s why I’m still happy about getting Google Maps Navigation vs TomTom.  I know that Google will continue to update it and that it’s likely to be a true rival to TomTom and Garmin within a year and those complaints I have will likely be addressed soon.  If I had a Garmin or TomTom, I’d be waiting a lot longer and I’d probably have to pay for the upgrade.

Google Maps Navigation may not be quite ready to challenge the big boys for navigation supremacy just yet, but for the price (FREE), you could certainly do a lot worse.

Have you been wanting to buy a portable handheld GPS or portable GPS navigator but just didn’t know quite what you were going to use it for?  You may even have friends who own one, but you’re still unsure?  These devices are great tools that provide a huge array of ways to get the most use out of them.   Take a look at some of the fun (and practical) ways to make the most of these fun GPS gadgets:

1.  Driving.  This is one of the most common and practical ways a GPS device can be used for especially with with mapping software. The software allows you to navigate to and from specific destinations by choosing the shortest distance, or fastest routes.  It can get you from one place to another and can even allow you to choose to avoid toll roads, avoid major highways, and have it recalculate to a different route than the one you are currently on.  Finding necessities like fuel and food near your current location are also added perks. Do you need to go to the restroom? Yes, just check your GPS and you can find the closest the restroom! Now how cool is that?

2.  Kayaking and Boating.  Using a portable GPS navigator in boating is beneficial to mark favorite fishing spots, a favorite landing point, a great scenic view that you may want to return to, or to navigate to and from your Kayak put in spot. Once you get out in the water, it is easy to loose your way as it all looks the same unless you have a land mark. A GPS unit will allow you to navigate back the exact same way you went out. Most of the GPS systems also have a Man Overboard feature. If by chance someone falls overboard or you loose equipment (fishing rods, etc.) you can mark the spot and go exactly back to the same location.

3.  Hiking.  A portable handheld GPS can be used in hiking to mark a trail head, a favorite location along a well-used trail, mark your campsite, trail tracking through the backlog, navigate toward previous marked points, and track your speed, distance, elevation, and much more. A GPS in the wilderness is almost a must and it can actually save your life. There are many stories of hikers getting injured on their journey and by being able to provide the coordinates of their location, rescue help found them quickly.

4.  In an Airplane.  Only for fun.  While flying commercial , you can track the distance to your destination, see how high you are flying, how fast the plane is traveling, and even where you are currently flying over.  Make sure to adhere to any regulations about portable electronic devices.

5. Geocaching.  A worldwide high tech  game of hide and seek, geocaching is a great hobby.  Players use their  GPS to find treasures, or geocaches, hidden by others with user-posted latitude and longitude coordinates.  This recreational sport has only been around for a short time, but is definitely growing in popularity. There are probably a few geocaches within only a mile or two of where you live!

6.  Vacation and Tourism.  While on vacation, a portable handheld GPS is a great way to visit places that may be of special interest, find local restaurants, and to mark places that you would like to remember, possibly return to, or recommend to others.  It’s also great for finding lodging and other amenities near your location, if you are traveling on a whim.

7. Biking.  The use of a portable GPS navigator is a great way to keep track of statistics like distance biked, how far to a destination, current speed, average speed, amount of time you’ve been moving, and amount of time spent stopped.  Whether you are a serious biker or a casual rider, this is a great way to keep track of your progress.

The possibilities are virtually endless for using a portable GPS navigator. These are just a few ideas.  Once you start using one, you’ll wonder why you waited so long, and how you managed without it.  There are many different styles, so you are able to get one that fits your needs and budget.

Special thanks to Taylor Gray for providing today’s post.