Friday
Dec282007
GPS Loggers and Macs
Friday, December 28, 2007 at 19:48
I've been looking for a GPS logger for a couple of months. A GPS logger can be used for attaching GPS information to your digital photos. This way, you can display your photos on publicly accessible maps in Flickr or Google Earth.
More and more of those GPS loggers are surfacing on the market [Sony GPS-CS1 / GPS-CS1KA, Globalsat DG-100, Qstarz BT Q-1000, GiSTEQ PhotoTrackr, WBT-201]. But they all have one problem; None of them seem to work (natively) with an Intel Mac running Leopard (source). Some of them require open-source drivers to function. The downside of that is that an update from Apple or an updated firmware in the GPS logger might cripple the functionality.
Why is it that GPS manufacturers won't create a GPS (logger) device that simply works on both platforms. It couldn't be that hard. Just create a GPS device that is also recognized as a external drive, containing the raw GPS data in the most common format (e.g. NMEA). This way even the Linux users are not left out.
More and more of those GPS loggers are surfacing on the market [Sony GPS-CS1 / GPS-CS1KA, Globalsat DG-100, Qstarz BT Q-1000, GiSTEQ PhotoTrackr, WBT-201]. But they all have one problem; None of them seem to work (natively) with an Intel Mac running Leopard (source). Some of them require open-source drivers to function. The downside of that is that an update from Apple or an updated firmware in the GPS logger might cripple the functionality.
Why is it that GPS manufacturers won't create a GPS (logger) device that simply works on both platforms. It couldn't be that hard. Just create a GPS device that is also recognized as a external drive, containing the raw GPS data in the most common format (e.g. NMEA). This way even the Linux users are not left out.
Reader Comments (2)
Willem,
There are a few devices out there that do mount as a USB mass storage device. I'm currently test-driving an AMOD AGL3080 that mounts as a removable drive and saves each GPS track as an NMEA log file. It works very well with my Powerbook G4. I believe the Sony GPS-CS1 mounts as a USB drive too, but the last time i checked it did NOT mount properly on a mac.
I also wrote a patch for Mirko Parthey's DG-100 script that finally adds Mac compatibility for the Globalsat DG-100 and downloads gps tracks as a single GPX file. However, as you mentioned in your post, it relies on open source drivers, which is never a 100% perfect solution.
If you're interested in the DG-100 script, you can grab it at http://www.blog-shmog.com/ and the AMOD AGL3080 is available through http://www.semsons.com, i'll also have a full review up in a week or two on my blog.
Hi Kevin,
thanks for the info. I'm curious if the AMOD about your findings on the AMOD GPS Data Logger. So I'll definitely check your review on it.
In the meanwhile, I'll keep looking for new devices. It seems that there's more and more choice on the subject.