Dorchester — Jan 10th 2017

Stephen Hardy’s entertaining presentation “Let’s start at the very beginning with A, B, C instead of Do-Re-Mi” (but making a serious point) and was motivated by Mick’s AGM report. It expressed thanks to all members, especially our Chairman Mick, actively involved in running AugWessex. His experience of running voluntary organisations suggests that positive feedback is not often forthcoming. As he will be moving from this area he wanted to show his appreciation.
John Lemon introduced us to the “ViewRanger” Hiking & Cycling Trails IOS App, a walker and cyclist’s mapping companion with an included overview map 1:1,000,000 of the entire country. Users can buy official OS digital maps at Landranger 1:50,000 or Explorer 1:25,000 scale. ViewRanger also covers 23 other countries in the same detail using their official topographic maps. It is possible to purchase the digital maps in bulk, but most people will make use of the app to buy ‘tiles’. Tiles are bought using pre-established credits in packs ranging from 400 for £5.99 and 3,334 for £49.99. 10km x 10km Landranger tiles and 5km x 5km Explorer tiles cost 7 credits (even less if part of the map is open sea). Using the 400 credit unit price this is equivalent to 11p. You can home in on your current position with cross wires centre screen. Assuming you have already purchased maps, as you zoom in it jumps from the smaller to larger scale. The grid reference of the cross wire is displayed to 10 figures i.e. the nearest 1 metre and the distance, as the crow flies, from the current location to 0.01 Km and change in height to nearest 1 metre. John demonstrated the very powerful search facility by searching for a specific farm. If you have planned a journey and have the relative maps downloaded before departure, you do not need Internet access. Not only can you record your route on an overlay on the map but ViewRanger provides data such as heights climbed and heath activity information. In addition to maps, you can access large amounts of information and points of interest to the area, including open air sporting activities like climbs, recommended walks and cycle routes. You can download both free and paid-for routes and guides. You can also record and post your own routes, and share information with friends including allowing them to follow your realtime progress. A recently introduced feature is Skyline, inspired by Wainwright’s well-known “Pictorial Guides to Lakeland Fells”, you point the camera of your IOS device to a view and Skyline names the key geographical features. If you are following a pre-planned route and look ahead with the camera, Skyline brings up points of interest and overlays arrows showing the route direction. John stressed the importance of having a backup printed map or screen shot to allow for any device failure. John recommended the Apple Watch App which, despite the tiny 42mm diagonal screen, works very well showing progress on a map under centre screen cross wires. You can record a walk/ride and your progress. The Mk 2 watch has a built-in GPS so you can use the Watch on its own. However, battery life with GPS switched on is limited, but good for a short outing; for longer trips it’s better to keep it connected to its iPhone. By default the Watch makes use of GPS only when disconnected from the iPhone or iPad.

We tend to be rather Apple-centric so it is good to be reminded that other technology companies out there are doing exciting things. Tom brought in the more compact version of Amazon’s two Echo devices. These are smart voice-activated speakers with specially tuned microphones connected to Amazon’s voice-controlled intelligent personal assistant service “Alexa”. The speaker is mains powered and connects to the internet via WiFi. Echo use voice interaction for music playback, to-do lists, alarm setting, podcast streaming, and audiobooks, as well as weather, traffic and other real-time information. It can control smart devices working as a home automation hub. Tom “summoned Alexa” followed by a request or instruction. “Alexa: what’s the weather going to be like today”. “Alexa: add bread to the shopping list”. “Alexa: what have I got on today”, “Alexa: print out the shopping list”. For Amazon Prime customers, Echo will stream music on demand from Amazon’s music streaming service. “Alexa” apps are available for both Android and IOS. Tom stressed that the advantage of “Alexa” is that she is just there in the background waiting to respond without the need to open and or log in to a device. Tom remarked on Echo/Alexa’s predominant presence at the Las Vegas tech show CES 2017 —at which Apple traditionally never exhibits.

Comments

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David Moon said…

Although not part of the standard backup on iTunes, maps can be backed up on iTunes and copied also be copied to a second device. You can hold the maps on up to four devices. here is a useful Link
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