iPhone App Review: GPS MapCard
Tuesday, May 26, 2009 at 11:30AM | Glyn Evans 
GPS MapCard from developer Imagebakery is a new and imaginative photo app for the iPhone that mixes maps with photos.
Launch the app and you are presented with a basic screen with a big blue button in the middle with a camera icon and the words "Take Photo". Tap this button and the iPhones camera app interfaces with GPS MapCard for you to take a photo. After you have taken your photo you're offered the now customary option of "Use Photo" or "Retake". Use the photo and the words "Preparing MapCard" appear and with in a few seconds you are presented with a map and a pin marking the spot the photo was taken.
Across the bottom of the screen are 3 options, Cancel, Save and Current Location. The first 2 options are obvious, but the Current Location option is there just in case the location is wrong, allowing you to try and get more accurate coordinates.
Across the top of this screen you will see the location, date and time, and if you tap on this area you can also enter a comment.
When you have done and tapped on the save option you get a preview of your MapCard, which is then automatically saved to your Camera Roll.
Above: The Apple store WestQuay, Southampton.So what do I think of GPS MapCard?
The app could not be any simpler to use, although accuracy of your location varies, and is a great way to share your photos and location on sites like facebook, or for taking the first shot at each location where you are taking photos.
All-in-all this is a great app, and one that will sit on my iPhone's first page of photo apps, however I do have 2 problems that stops it from getting the iPhoneography recommended award, which are:
- The accuracy of the map pin drops, which may be more to do with the iPhones GPS accuracy than the app itself, although being able to move the pin drop for more accuracy would have provided a solution for this issue.
- When emailing photos taken with GPS MapCard using the iPhone's email app, the received photos are blurry, something not caused by third party email apps like MailPhotos, again an iPhone issue, but something the developer should try and address.
GPS MapCard in iPhone App Review
Reader Comments (3)
Blurry photos is a major issue. Are you saying that they don't look right when received by email?
Accuracy is very good with the Core Location service on the iPhone, especially with GPS. My experience is less than 3m in Maps. The developer probably isn't using the accuracy options in the SDK properly.
JS
The blurriness is caused by the iPhone's email app incorrectly resizing the photo, if you use one of the 3rd party emailers, then it the photos are not received blurred.
The GPS accuracy seems to be more of a problem with photos taken in side a building etc, rather than outside. That said for in the UK I find the iPhone's GPS accuracy in general to be poor.
I have emailed the developer, and they are investigating this issues.
Apart from these issues, which for me are minor'ish, these apps are nice, and offer great potential.
Glyn,
The blurriness issue is strange. I don't have that problem on my iPhone 3G. I do have problems with viewing emailed/saved photos on an iPod touch 2nd Gen, but not on the first gen iPod touch. The issue on the 2nd gen iPod touch can be worked around by opening the photo in another app like Comic Touch and saving. I believe Comic Touch fiddles with the dimensions of the image slightly to get around the bug, by adding a couple of pixels on each side, for example. An idea for the dev.
GPS here in a major city in Spain seems to be very good, in fact it gives me my exact street address. All bets are off inside a building, however.