amazing new navigation device

i think i may have time to get one before next week's hike.

navigation device

haha!

Cool, but I still need my compass on my cell phone to operate it.

j/k

no batteries? how do they do that???!!!!

Haha! Love it!

Another multi-use function: The trimmed margins of a MAP make excellent firestarter.

sorry ... can't fold it.
it will have to go back.
Hahahahaha!!!

Pete2

Je ne parles pas Francais

Loved it!

Check out the companion technology called "BOOK." It sounds really innovative. I've gotta check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhcPX1wVp38

I'm packing today for a day hike tomorrow and the retro MAP app was one of the first things in my pack. I've been failed by cel phone GPS a few times on a couple of different networks, but MAP has never let me down.

my favorite feature is being able to see the BIG picture without scrolling all over the place and then ending up looking at some place you have no idea where you are.

I have a number of versions of that app, (BOOK I mean). My favorites are those by Pat McManus, Tom Clancy, and Patrick O'Brien

Well, I'm not learning any new fangeled technology....

The video is cute and I like maps too, but a real GPS (i.e. not a cellphone) has never let me down.

Seriously, (moving slightly away from the light-hearted nature of this thread) within its limitations a map is fairly reliable. However, a map is only a reference tool, you still need to do a little bit of that navigation thingy relating the real world to the map to find yourself on the map. This can be easy or difficult depending on terrain and how often you refer to the map app to keep yourself found. A decent compass is sometimes a required companion to a map, sometimes the map is all you need (but keep the compass handy). Knowledge of how to relate real world to the map is a learned skill and not something you intuitively know how to do (although some will disagree).

For a navigator at sea, relating the real world to the map can be very difficult at times. In a previous age before GPS other aids to navigation such as LORAN and Omega were used along with celestial navigation and Dead Reckoning which is almost an art form, and requires skill and practice. (going back to an even older age, celestial nav and Dead Reckoning was it, besides that look-out at the top of the mast).

A GPS has limitations too, primary being that it needs a power source (AA/AAA/rechargeable batteries), but other than that a decent receiver can pinpoint your location with 10's of feet and gets reasonably close in elevation.

Using all three (map, compass and GPS) navigation is much easier; this is what I do. Sometimes the GPS is never turned on, but it's always there.