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The best cellphone application - Ever!

Pathaway GPS Professional for Windows Mobile

Im still fascinated by the coolness of the bluetooth GPS I got as a gift for Christmas. Since then I've tested a few different applications, but I have to say I have found one to be so staggeringly good and useful that its worth mentioning.

It's called "Pathaway", and its a very good phone based GPS system, as well as a GPS Tracking system.

By now I think we all know what a GPS system is so I can dispense with explaining that, but other than giving you nightmares of "Big Brother" what possible good use could there be for a "GPS tracking system" for a civilian not engaged in the Private Investigations trade?

Let's try to imagine that you have an extended family across a few counties. You have some teenagers and some older independent adults that you have to take care of, all with different schedules and agendas. Now, imagine that the older adults live out in the countryside and have had experiences where they have gotten lost or disoriented out there where there is no streetlights or signs or any of the things we have here in the city.

Yes, having a GPS is helpful in that case, and so is a cellphone, but what would also be helpful would be a GPS tracking application that is easy to use and take everywhere with you. For example,lets say the GPS was in the phone and the tracker was something that ran passively on the phone too, so that there would be little risk of being forgotten or misconfigured. A GPS that you can take with you, is a GPS that comes with you when you travel to a new town, or when you get out of the car and take a little hike. You know, the kind where people get lost in the fading light.

GPS tracking allows you to tie the facilities of a GPS to a cellphone so that the GPS location information is reported back to a central site via the phone. You can view the information on a website or if you are using Pathaway, you can also use your cellphone to view the location information for the other Pathaway users on your cellphone.

"Well,couldnt you just call them and ask where they are since they already have a cellphone in the first place?" Sure you could do that as long as everything is ok. But if your relative is lost, and disoriented, or worse not able to respond to the phone due to being upside down in a ditch on a dark country road, well the GPS tracking system comes in particularly handy when you start your search and rescue.

Last year, a family travelling from Washington to California got lost in a storm and in the process the father of the family died trying to get the familiy rescued. The biggest difficulty that their relatives faced is that they had no idea where to start the search once they realized that they had not arrived at their jobs on Monday morning. GPS tracking would have given that information to anyone who cared to look. If you are travelling long distance, a relative or a friend who is not part of the trip can track your progress on a website( or on their own "Pathaway" enabled phone). If for some reason you become overdue, the last reported location of the GPS makes a terrific place to start looking for you. It cuts down on the guesswork of where to start searching and that is often what ends up saving lives.

If you are driving with a group of people long distance, you can each track all of your party, noting anyone who drops out of the convoy and their progress, or if someone opts for a different route, and again this can be done in a passive mode. Theres no need to call every 10 seconds asking "where are you", you just look down on the display and see it in the context of a moving map.

Teenagers or soon-to-be teenagers beware; your life just became amazingly difficult. With Pathaway active on your GPS Smartphone, I can track my teenagers and their GPS enabled phones like Marlin Perkins on Mutual of Omaha stalking a wild mountain goat.

Your teenager tells you that he's on his way to his friends house to do "homework", but the GPS tracking software tells you that he went to the mall, and the 7-11 on the corner, then off to the park for a bit of skateboarding first. And just to make the pain of being a teenager that much worse, you can view all of this info on your cellphone and then use the system to guide you directly to the layabout while he's off doing what hes not supposed to be doing. Yes, "Surprise!" is a good word for the look on his face when you arrive at the park and pull him off by his ear.

Imagine being at Disneyland and you all want to disperse around the park for the day. The Pathaway system would give you the info you need to find everyone later in the day, even if they cant answer the phone because they are on a ride or even taking a nap at the moment. Your cellphone would give you the tracking infomation for each person in your group who you wish to track. (Look at that, aunt barb is in Tommorowland and mom is already back at the hotel. Ok, no sense going to frontierland, lets just try to intercept aunt barb after she gets off the monorail...)

I really love this app. And remember, I really hate cellphones so this is saying alot.

Pathaway is available for Windows Mobile and Palm Powered Handheld phones. I use an older Cingular 8125 phone with a bluetooth GPS. Also note - if you want the GPS tracking features(and you do), you need to purchase the Professional version, not the standard version. Also note - you can turn the tracking off, so if you dont want to be found, you dont have to be (just dont tell your kids about that feature)

Posted @ January 10, 2008 09:43 PM | Current Affairs

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