Guest Post: A Review Of The Windows Phone Geocaching Apps

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GUEST POST

Invercargill geocacher and IT Technician Karen Brown (GC Handle: Bladesedge) is the proud new owner of a phone running Windows Phone. She takes us on a tour through the relatively unfamiliar world of geocaching apps on this platform:

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After several months of comparing platforms & trialling devices in iOS (iPhone), Android and Windows Phone platforms at work, I now am the proud owner of a Nokia Lumia 800, running the Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) platform.

What’s my first search for apps when I got my phone turned on & hooked up to the wifi? Geocaching. A girl’s gotta have priorities! Quickly downloaded the Official app ‘Geocaching Live’, free on the Windows Phone platform. There is no ‘paid for’ option like on the other platforms.

Now I should explain my geocaching trip preparation, so you get an idea of what I’m looking for. On my gc.com (geocaching.com) account I have Date Range Pocket Queries set up to download all the caches currently active in NZ several times a week. These I feed into GSAK. When I’m planning a geocaching trip I export out a .gpx file from GSAK of geocaches that are in the location of where I intend to go, and I fire this out to my handheld GPSr, my (android) tablet, and to my phone (in the past to my Blackberry). Ideally, I’d like to drop the tablet out of the equation. I rig it up in my car to use it as my navigation system, to get from cache to cache. I would see using my flash new phone as being a far less intrusive device to use, while also being a backup should my Garmin (handheld GPSr) ever fail.

On my tablet I use NeonGeo – having forgone C:geo when I found out it was frowned upon by gc.com. And I love it. Neongeo is EXACTLY what I’m seeking on the Windows Phone platform.

So my requirements for this evaluation exercise are:

- Being able to download my 2000+ cache (16MB) .gpx file to the app

- Having a map:

• On which I can see all the caches in the vicinity and navigate on up to date roadmaps (those stored in my gpx, and possibly extra live ones also)
• That allows me to download map tiles for when I’m out of coverage or not wanting to use data.
• A live map – if I wasn’t able to download tiles earlier

- Is easily navigate through cache descriptions, hints, logs etc and back to the map again

- Is easy on the eye (to the female cacher this IS important!)

Also, so as to cover off how others might cache, I’ll look at its cache finding capabilities, and whether or not it supports paperless caching.

So off we go!

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