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GPS is a receive-only technology. There are satellites in orbit around the planet and these satellites transmit. Your device receives these signals, but does not communicate back to the satellites. Using your device with GPS is no more dangerous than using it without GPS.
Airplane mode is basically equivalent to "turn off transmitters", though you can also ...
14
OsmAnd (on Play store or F-droid.org (version is sometimes a little behind)) has those features:
Fully open source
Fully offline (w/ option for some online features)
Play Store: Limited to 16 downloads (free) or costs ~6EUR (for funding)
(build it yourself or use a nightly build if don't want to pay or use the free one)
Offline vector maps:
based on ...
14
For Android 6.0
To Enable use :
For GPS : adb shell settings put secure location_providers_allowed +gps
For Network : adb shell settings put secure location_providers_allowed +network
To Disable :
GPS : adb shell settings put secure location_providers_allowed -gps
For Network : adb shell settings put secure location_providers_allowed -network
11
Since Jun 27th 2012, Google Maps for Android is offline featured.
They provide a 10-mile radius of map cache, and since you can point to different locations and cache them, you can virtually cache the entire world.
Open Google Maps App;
After the map loads, press the menu button and select "Settings";
From the "Settings" panel, select &...
11
One of the apps you have a picture of, the venerable GPS Status & Toolbox, describes this claim in the app description:
Keep your GPS fast: reset it or download A-GPS data regularly for faster fixes
Wikipedia does a great job defining the basic concepts behind Assisted-GPS:
Standalone GPS provides first position in approximately 30–40 seconds. A ...
11
If you look at my previous answer to a similar question you can see that by Google's testing utilising WiFi will use more battery than using GPS. This seems broadly in line with the figures given in an answer mentioned in the comments.
However as Izzy mentions these are ballpark figures and actual consumption is dependant upon what exactly the phone is ...
10
For the best resource out there, use PDADB.
This details every comprehensive chip-set used, for the Droid Charge, this is the spec sheet given.
As for Huawei U8160, this is the spec sheet given on that page.
Depending on how open the manufacturer is with the more intimate details, some may be marked proprietary which will be stated clearly.
The other ...
10
It sounds like Google Latitude does what you want. Once you opt-in you can then share your location data with your wife, and she should be able to check your location anytime. As far as I know, once you choose share your location data with someone they can retrieve it anytime without having to explicitly request your permission.
Latitude is built into the ...
9
No it's not.
Commercial GPS receivers (like the one in your phone) only work below 18 km and below 515 m/sec. The rationale behind this is that this way they can't be used in ballistic missiles (yes, I'm serious.)
In order to circumvent this you'd need to flash a different firmware to your GPS chip, if you didn't do this you're safe. No current android ...
9
Apps can get your approximate location without GPS, but only if they have the "coarse location" permission. The "fine location" permission lets an app get your GPS location too, if GPS is enabled.
When you an install an app, Android shows you the permissions it needs. If you don't see coarse or fine location in the list, the app can't get your location.
9
No. Bad cellphone coverage decreases battery life because the phone has to transmit with more power to be able to communicate back to the cell tower. It's like when you can barely hear someone hollering at you: you shout louder too to make sure they can hear you. But GPS is a one-way signal: the phone only receives it, it doesn't transmit anything. It doesn'...
9
According to Ifixit's teardown, the Nexus 7 2013 uses the Qualcomm 8064 Snapdragon S4 Pro SoC. Qualcomm's specs show that SoC uses their IZat Gen8A GNSS chipset, which according to their overview does include GLONASS support, though this doesn't necessarily mean GLONASS support is actually active and available in software.
A simple means to test whether ...
8
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/
A good starting point. They usually note also the chip/part numbers in their teardown reports.
8
Yes, but the application has to request the LOCATION_COARSE permission.
This uses a couple different sources used to find the approximate location.
Wifi access points: Google tracks the location of access points by gathering information about them when people have GPS on. Then they can use these access points to tell you where you are when you don't have ...
8
Follow these steps, if the icon in (3) has a line through it then it will not store your location in your images.
Open the menu
Choose settings
Tap the location icon
7
There are a number of possible reasons for an inaccurate location, mostly relating to the lack of a good GPS fix. If the phone cannot get an accurate GPS fix, it will use more approximate methods of deriving its location - such as cell tower locations and wifi hotspot locations.
Possible reasons for no good GPS fix, in vague descending order of likliness:
...
7
You might want to take a look at ShareGPS:
ShareGPS allows you to use your mobile's GPS just as you would an external one for your PC. It has the ability to send GPS status strings out over Bluetooth using virtual com ports and over USB using TCP ports. Then you can use your favorite mapping program such as Google Earth to display current GPS position and ...
6
The GPS chip used in the Android devices (usually SiRF Star 3/4) are of civilian grade. Civilian grade chips has some deliberate limitations in par with military grade chips. The civilian chips does have some intentional errors called "Selective Availablity".
Hence, whether it is Android or iPhone or Bluetooth GPS receiver or a dedicated unit which could ...
6
If you are ready to compromise the third requirement, Google's My Tracks, fits your other needs perfectly.
6
In short: GPS works without an active connection, it's completely passive.
GPS has however an addon feature called A-GPS (assisted GPS) which speeds up the startup (time to first fix) considerably. It basically warms up the receiver with GPS status data such as time, coarse location and most of all GPS satellite orbit location data (ephemeris data download)....
6
Basic Concepts
You are confusing two different concepts: "GPS" and "Navigation", that are used for two distinct scenarios on your device.
GPS is used to pin-point your location in the globe. Navigation is used to plan and track your movements from point A to point B.
While Navigation may depend on 3G or Wi-Fi to access the internet and retrieve maps and ...
6
Tasker can have approaching/leaving a location as a trigger, and sending a text message as an action. I've read before of people setting it up to do exactly what you're asking for.
6
In some trains you sit like inside an Faraday cage, as they even metallized the windows -- thus no signal can get through. That's also why you have special "mobile phone" zones in some trains: Here they placed something like a little "repeater" inside this section of the train, capturing the signal from outside the cabin (and transmitting it back the same ...
6
I had this issue - it isn't that a fix doesn't come, it is just that it is taking a very long time to get a fix.
This is due to the lack of the downloaded aGPS data - it can't download the data, and so has to rely on solely GPS satellited, which takes ages.
If you have been disconnected from the internet for a while, then you will suffer from these effects....
6
GPS generally affects battery life significantly only when used (in standby, its energy consumption is neglible, usually far below 1 mW). But when it tries to aquire a fix (i.e. you want to know your current position), it might reach consumption values comparable to your device's screen (~500 mW).
So in your described situation, it might influence battery ...
6
While a data connection might prove helpful for a faster fix (see: AGPS), it's not strictly necessary to have one. There a a lot of "Offline GPS Apps" available. I personally e.g. used Locus Maps successfully for that in the past, but there are plenty of similar apps available.
Tracks can be stored on the device, of course, and do not need to be sent to a ...
5
This is not possible at the moment (but maybe in the near future).
Reason:
Google maps data is stored as raster image tiles without any meta information (street vectors, streetnames, interceptions and so on) besides the geolocation per tile.
This means routes cannot even be calculated offline even if someone wants to.
Maps is deliberatly an online service, ...
5
on Android 4.3 and newer: (can't say about carrier/manufacturer specific, such as samsung.. they change everything! this is tested on stock android)
open settings > Location (under personal)
there you will see a list of recent app titled "recent"
easy as that. the top app is the last one to use GPS. if you are still seeing the GPS icon, you can click that ...
5
Use vector maps instead of pre-downloading or caching rendered map tiles.
Vector Maps versus Bitmap, Pre-rendered, Tiled Maps
Here's the difference: Caching Google Maps or any other pre-rendered maps stores dozens to thousands tiles of (bitmap) images on your device. Even though these are compressed, they take up gigabytes of storage, especially if you're ...
5
GPS and navigation are separate concepts.
GPS itself does not require Internet connectivity. However, many navigation apps (e.g. Google Maps or Waze) require an active connection in order to access map data on-the-fly, compute directions, look up traffic details, search for points of interest, etc.
There are other (usually paid) apps that don't require ...
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