This week, for the first time, I became the proud owner of an iPhone and became another Apple turnover. Drawn by the seductive advertising and my frustration with my Nokia smart phone and the not interesting Ovi.
Ovi maps was a great addition to my Nokia phone and I used it while on holiday to great affect as a navigation aid. However it wasn't without some frustrating errors which in the main seem to be as a result of little thought about how it would work on a mobile phone - I know, weird when this is Nokia we're talking about. Ok so its designed to work on a phone but, as with any such device, I didn't always have a signal and that seemed to be the crux of the problem. You dare not open the application while indoors for fear of losing signal (or not finding a strong enough signal) and then being forced to restart the phone to get everything else back up and running again. But this wasn't supposed to be a rant about Nokia or Ovi...
One of the first Apps I downloaded onto my iPhone was ESRI's ArcGIS App, while doing so I did notice some other interesting Apps that I will return to at some later date. ESRI's App is fairly simple to use, and a great way of cataloging and using map layers from a number of different sources. I really do like the fact that you can add your own ArcGIS data source and connect to ArcGIS Online for more content. There are a couple of simple map tools which allow you to identify locations, measure distances and areas and zooming in and out is a cinch. Without logging in to ArcGIS Online you are fairly limited in functionality. I do have one small gripe that arose while working with the App, after I found the location I wanted I decided to change layer to something else, the map changed to its fullest extent and the location was lost. The only way back from here was to look in my previous searches or search again.
I can't help but feel that this is in some ways a showcase App with little real grit - That doesn't mean I'm not going to at least try in the coming weeks/months to use it how I feel it should be used.
Ovi maps was a great addition to my Nokia phone and I used it while on holiday to great affect as a navigation aid. However it wasn't without some frustrating errors which in the main seem to be as a result of little thought about how it would work on a mobile phone - I know, weird when this is Nokia we're talking about. Ok so its designed to work on a phone but, as with any such device, I didn't always have a signal and that seemed to be the crux of the problem. You dare not open the application while indoors for fear of losing signal (or not finding a strong enough signal) and then being forced to restart the phone to get everything else back up and running again. But this wasn't supposed to be a rant about Nokia or Ovi...
One of the first Apps I downloaded onto my iPhone was ESRI's ArcGIS App, while doing so I did notice some other interesting Apps that I will return to at some later date. ESRI's App is fairly simple to use, and a great way of cataloging and using map layers from a number of different sources. I really do like the fact that you can add your own ArcGIS data source and connect to ArcGIS Online for more content. There are a couple of simple map tools which allow you to identify locations, measure distances and areas and zooming in and out is a cinch. Without logging in to ArcGIS Online you are fairly limited in functionality. I do have one small gripe that arose while working with the App, after I found the location I wanted I decided to change layer to something else, the map changed to its fullest extent and the location was lost. The only way back from here was to look in my previous searches or search again.I can't help but feel that this is in some ways a showcase App with little real grit - That doesn't mean I'm not going to at least try in the coming weeks/months to use it how I feel it should be used.
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