My wife has a new iPad and has been perusing the app releases. She just showed me this: CoPilot Live HD, turn-by-turn navigation available for iPad | iphone & ipad blog

Googling around also provides information about a slew of pending car mounts for the ipad. Someone has already even custom fitted their ipad to the dash: iPad gets fitted into car dashboard, makes you an instant carpooling superstar (video) -- Engadget

All of which has me wondering if anyone here is headed in the direction of using an iPad for navigation, and how.

I imagine we can feel confident that Streets and Trips team probably doesn't have "port S&T to the iPad" on their to-do list but I wonder if someone other that CoPilot has anything in the works.

Anyway, just opening up the iPad topic to see what people have on their minds.

Steve, I think Richard (a.k.a. winwaed) was recently expecting to receive an iPad as his birthday present. I'm sure he, too, will be exploring the possibilities of using it for mapping and GPS navigation. I'm looking forward to more people sharing their iPad stories, and also, hopefully the success of the iPad will motivate other tablet PC manufacturers to design better units.

I think it should make a good navigation device with its screen that is much bigger than a TomTom and more convenient and smaller than a laptop (no keyboard). It is going to need an in-car mount to be workable. I also have some concerns about GPS tracking. It does fine when static, but I haven't been able to give it a good driving test.

The inbuilt native Google Maps app seems to work pretty well (again, haven't tried using it for navigating). For other maps, I've tried MapTap (simple map viewer & current location viewer that uses streaming OSM data); and WunderMap (from Wunderground). Wundermap is based on Google Maps but is the best iPad map app I've seen so far, with overlays for temperature, cloud, and precipitation. Cloud & precipitation are animated. The cloud appears to be global (except the polar regions), so you can see things like the volcanic plumefrom Eyjafjallajokull.


Richard

I have heard good things about this software for the IPAD ( still debating if I should get one):
Motion X GPS … $3
Topo Maps by Phil Endicott (the red icon) ... $8
NG World Atlas HD ... $2
CoordTrans- Coordinates translator for iPhone ... $3
Offline Topo Maps (tan and teal icon) ... $5

Those are some cheap apps compared to what I've paid. Or are those per month charges?

Ted

My understanding is that is the cost to download the software. Data usage after that is another story....

Is it possible to upload a Windows based program to the iPad? I refer to Global Mapper. Can a Garmin GPS be coupled via USB or BT? Is it possible to enter waypoints on the fly?

If the above is possible it would be a great tool!

Regards,

Kinnie