How to Use Your Phone as a GPS
When you are in the wilderness, knowing basic navigation skills and how to use a map and compass are absolutely critical. Without them, you can easily wind up lost and find yourself in a very dangerous situation. But did you know that your smart phone can easily double as an excellent wilderness GPS device. It is constantly acquiring satellite signals even when cell range is miles away. While I still highly stress the importance of knowing basic navigation skills and learning how to use a map and compass, we live in a world where technology reigns supreme. And his piece of technology is all to convenient to pass on.
GPS relies on satellites, not cell towers. So even when you have no cell signal, your smartphone will still be able to locate you. Your smartphone works with both the Global Positioning System (GPS) and Assisted GPS (A-GPS). GPS draws its information from the network of satellites orbiting the earth. Assisted GPS, also known as A-GPS or AGPS, draws its information from local cell towers and enhances the performance of standard GPS on mobile devices connected to a cellular network. S-GPS improves the accuracy of the GPS location to 5-10 meters, reduces the fixing time to one second and increases the the receiver's sensitivity to 20-30 dBHz. This added dimension makes A-GPS faster, more accurate and preserves battery life.
You do not need a third party app to view the latitude and longitude of a location on your iPhone. To display your current iPhone GPS coordinates follow these step to find your location coordinates in degrees, minutes and seconds:
To view your current GPS coordinates, launch the Maps app, tap on the blue dot, which represents your location. Swipe up on the screen and you should see your GPS coordinates. Unfortunately, you cannot copy these coordinates and without a third party map app the map you do see may not be detailed enough to be useful. You will need a topographic map using latitude and longitude to locate yourself.
There is another app that comes pre-installed on your iPhone you can use to see your coordinates: it’s the Compass app. The downside of this app is that you can only see the coordinates of your current location. The upside is that you can actually copy the GPS coordinates on iPhone and paste them into a third party navigation app, or share them with someone. To view your latitude, longitude, and elevation coordinates in the Compass app, simply launch it and look for the data at the bottom.
There are several GPS navigation apps that are optimized to make the smartphone act like a handheld GPS unit. The benefits of a GPS app are two fold.
The Gaia GPS app has been used for many years by hikers and backpackers. It is the one I am most familiar with and have used. The app gives you access to an impressive catalog of over 50 downloadable and printable base maps. You will find maps such as National Geographic Trails Illustrated, NeoTracks, US Topo, and ESRI World Imagery. You can customized your maps by adding your own overlays, trails, GPX tracks, and waypoints for increased guidance. This includes helpful information for active fires, avalanche risks as well as public and private land. The interface is relatively user-friendly but there is definitely a learning curve. Gaia GPS comes in three different levels: free, Premium, and Premium with Outside+ membership.
On most trips and in most locations, to navigate I rely primarily on my:
GPS relies on satellites, not cell towers. So even when you have no cell signal, your smartphone will still be able to locate you. Your smartphone works with both the Global Positioning System (GPS) and Assisted GPS (A-GPS). GPS draws its information from the network of satellites orbiting the earth. Assisted GPS, also known as A-GPS or AGPS, draws its information from local cell towers and enhances the performance of standard GPS on mobile devices connected to a cellular network. S-GPS improves the accuracy of the GPS location to 5-10 meters, reduces the fixing time to one second and increases the the receiver's sensitivity to 20-30 dBHz. This added dimension makes A-GPS faster, more accurate and preserves battery life.
You do not need a third party app to view the latitude and longitude of a location on your iPhone. To display your current iPhone GPS coordinates follow these step to find your location coordinates in degrees, minutes and seconds:
- Make sure that Location Services is ON. Navigate to Settings -> Privacy -> Location Services -> ON
- In the list of apps under Location Services, make sure Compass is ON
- Exit Settings
To view your current GPS coordinates, launch the Maps app, tap on the blue dot, which represents your location. Swipe up on the screen and you should see your GPS coordinates. Unfortunately, you cannot copy these coordinates and without a third party map app the map you do see may not be detailed enough to be useful. You will need a topographic map using latitude and longitude to locate yourself.
There is another app that comes pre-installed on your iPhone you can use to see your coordinates: it’s the Compass app. The downside of this app is that you can only see the coordinates of your current location. The upside is that you can actually copy the GPS coordinates on iPhone and paste them into a third party navigation app, or share them with someone. To view your latitude, longitude, and elevation coordinates in the Compass app, simply launch it and look for the data at the bottom.
There are several GPS navigation apps that are optimized to make the smartphone act like a handheld GPS unit. The benefits of a GPS app are two fold.
- It acts as a map library, just in case your printed maps are damaged or lost.
- It has the same functionality you would expect of a traditional handheld GPS - like pin pointing its location, and navigating to waypoints.
The Gaia GPS app has been used for many years by hikers and backpackers. It is the one I am most familiar with and have used. The app gives you access to an impressive catalog of over 50 downloadable and printable base maps. You will find maps such as National Geographic Trails Illustrated, NeoTracks, US Topo, and ESRI World Imagery. You can customized your maps by adding your own overlays, trails, GPX tracks, and waypoints for increased guidance. This includes helpful information for active fires, avalanche risks as well as public and private land. The interface is relatively user-friendly but there is definitely a learning curve. Gaia GPS comes in three different levels: free, Premium, and Premium with Outside+ membership.
On most trips and in most locations, to navigate I rely primarily on my:
- Paper topographic maps,
- Magnetic compass,
- Garmin GPS now replaced with a Garmin inReach Mini with it's ability to send and receive messages using the Iridium satellite network.