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Any GPS nav apps that will work with iPad (wifi) + Virgin mobile mifi?

P

purplesaber

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 15, 2008
44
0
I have a wifi iPad and recently picked up the Virgin mobile mifi. The mifi apparently has built in GPS. This seems to work fine in the native maps app -- the locator pin actually follows along the map (with a little error) when I am driving and connected to the mifi.

I would like to have a real GPS nav app though (one that will read directions out loud). I bought MotionX but the app does not seem to recognize or take advantage of the GPS on the mifi. It only tells me that the iPad's GPS is not operating (which of course is true since it doesn't have one).

So before wasting money on any other GPS apps, has anyone had success with a set-up like this? I'd love to hear about a GPS app that does work with wifi iPad + mifi if there is one out there!
 
GPS on IOS4 devices...

I'm not running iPad, but 2g iPod Touch. Virgin Mobile USA MiFi 2200. Maps seem to use Location Services.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1975 is a document Apple published long before the MiFi 2200 became available, and doesn't address how to incorporate the MiFi's internal GPS with the operating system, but it does describe how you're receiving your location information.

Ideally, the API for GPS in the MiF would be published and announced, but just like the disable bluetooth on Virgin Mobile phones, why would Virgin Mobile just give it all away? The phones and plans are very competitive and reasonable, and just like they offer services for ringtones and picture transfer on phones that, unlocked, would already have the capability, the are probably going to launch a GPS service in the near future, at a fair price, possibly an app, which will give full access to the GPS in the MiFi2200, if the device even has a GPS receiver in it...

Shortly thereafter, the binary code they release will be reverse engineered by the Jailbreak community, and released for the whole (Jailbroken) world, and many will rejoice.

And Virgin Mobile USA will still draw enough (stock iPod Touch/iPad) subscribers with their proprietary GPS guidance system to make the whole thing worthwhile, monetarily.

If they are smart, they'll publicly ignore the whole JB thing altogether, and just let it slide innocently by, possibly supporting the effort with code releases, just to take the input from the free software/GNU movement, which can improve everyone's life with the right licensing, whatever that may be.

IF the damn thing has a GPS chip in it... which I can't say it does.

The Sprint and Verizon are alleged to have GPS inside, but I can't say exactly what API one would use to access an NMEA over TCP/IP stream, like chart plotters do.

Maybe I should google THAT!

I'll get back to you if it does.

iNavX doesn't get lots of updates from the thing, and although it would be awesome if it did, the MiFi doesn't have an open port pushing NMEA data out on it like PC and Mac chart plotting software does. I've taken this thing around the block, with full access to the horizon and sky, and it doesn't push my position to GPS enabled devices in real GPS time like it would if it actually had GPS, or if it were a dock connector or bluetooth style device with GPS capability.

Ugh,

must sleep, but would love any feedback or news of development in this area...
 
Gps mifi 2200

ohnonotagain said:
I'm not running iPad, but 2g iPod Touch. Virgin Mobile USA MiFi 2200. Maps seem to use Location Services.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1975 is a document Apple published long before the MiFi 2200 became available, and doesn't address how to incorporate the MiFi's internal GPS with the operating system, but it does describe how you're receiving your location information.

Ideally, the API for GPS in the MiF would be published and announced, but just like the disable bluetooth on Virgin Mobile phones, why would Virgin Mobile just give it all away? The phones and plans are very competitive and reasonable, and just like they offer services for ringtones and picture transfer on phones that, unlocked, would already have the capability, the are probably going to launch a GPS service in the near future, at a fair price, possibly an app, which will give full access to the GPS in the MiFi2200, if the device even has a GPS receiver in it...

Shortly thereafter, the binary code they release will be reverse engineered by the Jailbreak community, and released for the whole (Jailbroken) world, and many will rejoice.

And Virgin Mobile USA will still draw enough (stock iPod Touch/iPad) subscribers with their proprietary GPS guidance system to make the whole thing worthwhile, monetarily.

If they are smart, they'll publicly ignore the whole JB thing altogether, and just let it slide innocently by, possibly supporting the effort with code releases, just to take the input from the free software/GNU movement, which can improve everyone's life with the right licensing, whatever that may be.

IF the damn thing has a GPS chip in it... which I can't say it does.

The Sprint and Verizon are alleged to have GPS inside, but I can't say exactly what API one would use to access an NMEA over TCP/IP stream, like chart plotters do.

Maybe I should google THAT!

I'll get back to you if it does.

iNavX doesn't get lots of updates from the thing, and although it would be awesome if it did, the MiFi doesn't have an open port pushing NMEA data out on it like PC and Mac chart plotting software does. I've taken this thing around the block, with full access to the horizon and sky, and it doesn't push my position to GPS enabled devices in real GPS time like it would if it actually had GPS, or if it were a dock connector or bluetooth style device with GPS capability.

Ugh,

must sleep, but would love any feedback or news of development in this area...
Click to expand...

The MIFI 2200 does have a built in GPS (Under Spec you can see it has an antenna). I bought it in the hopes of adding GPS functionality to my WIFI iPAD.....and was hoping to use it WITHOUT data services....i.E. 4 port wireless router with GPS functionality...

Nothing seems to work with the SPrint version...Even with GPS enabled it remains in the searching mode on my unit......

I was also hoping to use iNAVx but haven't been able to determine yet how to access the GPS info....My fall back plan is to use a Wirless USB print server hooked to a handheld GPS unit that supports NMEA data converted to USB.

Any info you may have greatly appreciated....ining the developers group on the novatel site to get actual code info...
 
Sprint WIFI (Support GPS NMEA Output) with Developers Kit

ohnonotagain said:
I'm not running iPad, but 2g iPod Touch. Virgin Mobile USA MiFi 2200. Maps seem to use Location Services.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1975 is a document Apple published long before the MiFi 2200 became available, and doesn't address how to incorporate the MiFi's internal GPS with the operating system, but it does describe how you're receiving your location information.

Ideally, the API for GPS in the MiF would be published and announced, but just like the disable bluetooth on Virgin Mobile phones, why would Virgin Mobile just give it all away? The phones and plans are very competitive and reasonable, and just like they offer services for ringtones and picture transfer on phones that, unlocked, would already have the capability, the are probably going to launch a GPS service in the near future, at a fair price, possibly an app, which will give full access to the GPS in the MiFi2200, if the device even has a GPS receiver in it...

Shortly thereafter, the binary code they release will be reverse engineered by the Jailbreak community, and released for the whole (Jailbroken) world, and many will rejoice.

And Virgin Mobile USA will still draw enough (stock iPod Touch/iPad) subscribers with their proprietary GPS guidance system to make the whole thing worthwhile, monetarily.

If they are smart, they'll publicly ignore the whole JB thing altogether, and just let it slide innocently by, possibly supporting the effort with code releases, just to take the input from the free software/GNU movement, which can improve everyone's life with the right licensing, whatever that may be.

IF the damn thing has a GPS chip in it... which I can't say it does.

The Sprint and Verizon are alleged to have GPS inside, but I can't say exactly what API one would use to access an NMEA over TCP/IP stream, like chart plotters do.

Maybe I should google THAT!

I'll get back to you if it does.

iNavX doesn't get lots of updates from the thing, and although it would be awesome if it did, the MiFi doesn't have an open port pushing NMEA data out on it like PC and Mac chart plotting software does. I've taken this thing around the block, with full access to the horizon and sky, and it doesn't push my position to GPS enabled devices in real GPS time like it would if it actually had GPS, or if it were a dock connector or bluetooth style device with GPS capability.

Ugh,

must sleep, but would love any feedback or news of development in this area...
Click to expand...

Just finished installing the Novatel Developers SDK and it actually does support the built in GPS unit on the SPrint MIFI 2200.

They supply a Driver package (Separately) that , when used with the kit enables you to bypass the built in programming that Disables the GPS engine on the Sprint Unit and run it in MS and Standalone mode.

The drivers provide for a USB Com Port to connect to on your PC or MAC and it supplies NMEA Location Details via that port....I have tried it on a PC and it is fully functional with Google Maps Live Feed.

Working on the following now....

a) Programming the Sprint Unit to AutoStart with GPS active all the time.
b) Enabling NMEA Output to a TCP/IP address/port on the unit to allow with WFI GPS data feeds to iPad applications....Time will tell.....
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

It's not quite what you asked, but for $100 you can get the bad elf gps dongle, or the x150 or mfi5280 Bluetooth gps devices. They all work great.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

They are on amazon, and here is a link to sporty's pilot shop of all 3 solutions

http://sportys.com/pilotshop/category/1153
 
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