Exploring the UK by bike or on foot just became much easier with Virtual Programming’s release of Anquet Maps Mac and Anquet Maps iPhone applications, which offer the same features as Anquet’s popular mapping software for Windows. Users can easily plan and edit routes, look up points-of-interest along the way, and more. GPS functionality in the iPhone version lets mobile users easily navigate routes while on the go.

Mac screenshot

“Whether you want to hike through a national park, plan a multi-kilometer bike ride, or simply figure out the best path for a daily walk, Anquet Maps Mac and Anquet Maps iPhone are at your disposal,” said Virtual Programming CEO Mark Hinton. “These are far and away the most robust mapping applications we’ve ever seen.”

Both applications let users replace their bulky paper maps with powerful digital versions. Users can carefully create and edit routes in perfect detail, with the ability to see maximum and minimum altitudes along the way, as well as estimated travel time and other information. In addition, they can easily look up locations by National Grid coordinates or longitude and latitude, with the option to add those places as waypoints along a route.

Anquet Maps Mac is free software. Maps are purchased separately, but users only need to buy the coverage they require. Maps are available in definable parcels or as specific popular areas, such as national parks.

Maps and route profiles can be printed out and exported to Anquet Maps iPhone, which is available separately. This handy app offers the same route planning and editing features as Anquet Maps Mac, with added GPS functionality that lets users make sure they’re properly navigating their routes. Anquet Maps iPhone also enables users to track their routes and save average speed, distance traveled, and other data, along with text notes for handy reference.

OS 1:25k mapping on the iPhone

Route information on the iPhone

Tracklog on the iPhone

GPS screen on the iPhone

Anquet Maps iPhone is available now at Apple’s App Store. Pricing is £19.99, and free digital maps are included to help users get started.
Anquet Maps Mac is free to download, although there will also be a box product version available at £29.99, which includes Map credit to the value of the full purchase price.
Additional map prices start at £10.00.

Anquet Maps iPhone requires iPhone OS version 3.0.
Anquet Maps Mac requires Mac OS X version 10.5.8, any Intel processor and 512Mb RAM.

More information, including screenshots and tutorials, is also available at: http://www.vpmaps.com/

Nokia N97 as an Outdoor Phone?
WILL ADD PHOTOS SOON
Features: 32GB storage, touch screen, built in GPS, slide out keyboard.
It arrived a few months back now, and I’ve had plenty of time to play with it. Ok, I admit that I missed the first few calls as I wasn’t sure how to answer it, but beyond that it’s pretty easy to use. It looks like a typical touch screen phone. You can easily customise the home screen with widgets such as Facebook, email, favourite contacts and so on. There’s not much choice yet, but this is certainly going to increase as this phone becomes more popular.

For a start there's decent video and photo quality, especially compared to the N95. The video quality is pretty amazing – playing back well in full screen on my netbook.

Battery life is now much better. I found that using Sports Tracker on my N95 would exhaust the batteries on one run! And I certainly can't run that far or fast. I can use the N97 all day on one charge, maybe browsing the web, making a few calls and using the GPS upwards of 2 hours depending how far I run. Using it lightly, I found the battery life good for about 2 days. I’m pretty impressed with this considering what’s been packed inside, and I’m sure with some fiddling around that battery life could be improved slightly (screen brightness). Some reviewers, even on the BBC, seem to claim the battery life is poor; but that's not been what I've found.

GPS speed is impressive, as opposed to the N95, and even picks up enough signals indoors. This means that the Sport Tracker running app work a dream. If you do any sort of outdoor sport then Sport Tracker is a free download from Nokia that allows you to track all your walks, runs, bike trips or whatever else you could apply it to. I found it tracked my stock run perfectly, where my Garmin GPS unit usually fails due to the tree coverage.

Nokia Maps has been useful on a few non-outdoorsy trips this summer, finding an Indian restaurant in Bridgnorth on foot and Stirling by car competently. It did try and re-route me to North Africa when I looked for an outdoor shop in Edinburgh (even on restarting!) It is also far from comprehensive when searching for local facilities, finding barely anything in Caernarfon. If you have the post code however, then you can use that to find your destination. That said, I’m making use of a free 30 day trial and would rather pay for a dedicated Sat Nav than this software; although the walking routing really was impressive. Google Maps is a free alternative that provides driving and walking directions, but only by a list of directions and a map rather than the more intuitive live map on the Nokia Maps. You can search for anything locally and it was pretty good, but like the Nokia offering, is still far from comprehensive. I can see this becoming a standard phone function in the next few years, most useful in the larger urban centres, but of limited use until there’s a proper database we can call upon.

GPS Viewranger works on the N97 and looks impressive. Viewranger and the N97 is definitely a killer combination – considering the GPS rarely worked on the N95. Being touch screen, you can scroll effortlessly through the maps and create routes much easier by tapping the waypoints in. If the phone was waterproof, it would double as a proper GPS, but it isn't and it's just not rugged enough to replace it outright.

Extras: Setting up the N97 as a modem is painless. I was online in seconds from my Samsung NC10, but then the performance depends on the signal strength in your area. There’s a built in FM transmitter so you can listen to tracks in the car, but whenever I used it I got an annoying beep every few seconds.

Some annoyances. While email was quick to set up, you can’t add a contact from a new email - something pretty fundamental if you ask me, or for that matter, by adding a new contact from a text message. On opening an html attachment in an email, you open the browser, but it’s not the full browser for some reason; bookmarks are missing. Overall, while I've found receiving email on the go has been a boon, the software is utter pants. Oh, and you’ve got to pay for Acrobat Reader – only a few quid, but annoying! Can be slow browsing the web, but this is probably down to the net speed than the phone.

Best features? 32gigabytes of storage means that you can put as much music as you’d need for a trip. It’s also large enough to store some video files, which you can download for free from iPlayer. There’s some half decent speakers built in, but you really need to listen on headphones for any real level of quality.
Some down sides? The overall build quality is good, but the battery cover is a little disappointing. It’s also a little awkward to remove, and suggests that it would not be wise to continually swap batteries. The silver button on the front! Why Nokia? Why? I’m not convinced either with the new charging socket – I don’t think that’ll survive the wear and tear over the next couple of years, but hopefully I’ll be wrong. Maybe once I stop trying to put it in upside down I might feel differently, but after three months I’m yet to figure up from down.

Another problem is the current lack of decent specific accessories. There are no decent cases available, and due to the annoying lock button on the side of the phone, it’s very difficult to unlock in a standard aquapack case as the plastic is thick, and while I can unlock it, it’s only going to be a matter of time before the case is holed. The arm band case from Aquapack though does the trick, but as the fit is snug and the plastic so grippy, it takes five minutes to get the phone in. Will post a review soon as I think that it’s becoming easier with age.

As an outdoor phone I’ve been more than impressed with the phone’s performance so far, but I’ve mainly tested it as a runner’s phone. I’ve recalled my letter to Santa asking for a Garmin Forerunner 305 now as this does mostly what I need. What will be an obstacle again is Nokia’s inability to market and support their technology in the way Apple can. There’s a Bluetooth heart rate monitor available by Polar, but only as a bundle with another Nokia, and not as a separate accessory. This is typical Nokia, great hardware but no follow through and support that you’d expect for what is arguably one of the most advanced smart phones yet.

Wild camping, I can watch a video or listen to music now, as well as the radio but at the risk of flattening the battery. Being a competent camera (for a phone) means further battery drain. So yes, it’s useful, but so damned useful that you’re likely to drain the battery before you need to make a call, so again a spare battery is essential for multiday trips. But I’ve used it for a few overnighters, listening to loads of music on the mp3, browsing the internet, couple of calls and a few videos and photos and still had enough battery to make and receive calls the following day.

Summary. A Smartphone that does it all, and much more if the software will be developed for it. Very expensive unless you pay £40 a month on a contract to receive it for free. Could be a tad faster and could do with being sturdier for outdoor use, but then it’s designed for mass market. Still waiting for the perfect outdoors mobile, but despite small niggles, this is a huge leap in the right direction. 9/10.

If you search Google for Netbooks on Mountains, then yours truly has found himself firmly on top.

So far, 'Scutter' (network name for the Sammy) has been up Yr Wyddfa and Moel Siabod this week. Has anyone else got a netbook that's gone higher? I mean up a proper mountain? No driving up or cable cars or that sort of cheating... Altitude only counts on the ground as well, as there's got to be millions that have flown. Or - what about the highest number of Munros or Washis one's climbed?

So, lets have it - more pictures of Netbooks on Mountains and see who posts us the highest! Free set of A4 Snowdonia Moods - B&W images for the highest we get!

We've had the old arguments of mobile phones and hills, but here's a new one for you.

Netbooks on the mountian? For those of you who've been sleeping in Millican's cave for the last twelve months, a Netbook is basically a small laptop (7-10inch screen) with decent battery life and optimised for browsing 'tinternet on the move. There's a few different brands available, a couple of the better ones being the Asus EEE 901 and the Samsung N10. I nearly got the Asus, but the hard drive was too small, so the Samsung, affectionately known as a Sammy online, was the best option. With a battery life of over 7 hours and a large 10in screen, it's a brilliant piece of kit.

Not only that, but at 1kg you could conceivably take one on an overnight wild camp. To test it out, i took it for a walk up Yr Wyddfa last night and as you can see from the pics, managed to get online. There was nobody on MSN though to ask them to "guess where I am? No, Guess. You'll never get it. Go on though, guess!) If it does start a craze off though, you know where you read it first! Going to have to find a lighter version next and couple it to the Freeloader solar charger ;-)

Internet connection was using the N95 as a bluetooth modem, and speed wasn't overly impressive. That said, my home broadband is expensive and speedy so i'm spoilt in that regard. Some netbooks come with built in wireless broadband (such as the Asus eee901) but i'm waiting now for a smaller, lighter version.

The essential Met Office Mountain Weather Forecast for Snowdonia has changed yet again.

At first glance, it looks a bit flashier, finally with icons to summarise the weather throughout the day. A glaring oversight is that they don't include an overnight forecast, so anyone camping out in the park is left to guess the conditions from the lowland forecast.

There's at least an all-new hazards panel, which looks utterly dull in this week's benign weather. That looks like it'll come into its own in foul weather, as their warnings in the past have been vague and this might be a bit less ambiguous. There's the danger that it might be a bit over complex, but we'll have to wait and see (hopefully not for another six months).

Other than that, it shows that at least the Met Office is committed to providing this service in a financial climate that could well see it under threat.