Geotagging photos with any digital camera and your iPhone

The new iPhoto has some really cool features. One of my favorites is the ability to sort photos by location. This is particularly useful (and entertaining) when you travel to the same places over and over again. Sorting by location allows you to see how much places have changed (or stayed the same, depending upon where you go).

I have a nice point and shoot (a Sony Cybershot) and my partner has a Canon Digital Rebel XT. Neither of these cameras have a GPS unit built into them and we don't really want to purchase new cameras to get geotags automatically added to our photos. We looked into getting an external device, like the Sony GPS-CS1KASP GPS Unit , but we are Mac users and the process, while pretty seamless I hear for Windows users, takes a lot more tweaking on a Mac.

One thing we do have are iPhones-- not second generation ones with GPS chips built-in, but iPhones nonetheless. I decided to find out if I could use a geotagging app on my phone to help me add location information to photos using cell tower triangulation. I eventually did find a good solution in Saltpepper's GeoTag.

The process of data collection is pretty simple and flexible. You can either set your camera's clock to match your iPhone's and then take pictures while running GeoTag. The app can keep your iPhone from sleeping, which will allow constant data collection, but which will also reduce your phone's battery life. Knowing that this would be a problem, the developer included a file name-based data collection mode in which you enter in the file name (IMG, DSCN, etc.) and the number of the next shot you will take into the app's settings. Every time you take a picture, just press the "collect" button in the app and it will store the location information along with the name of the image file it will eventually sync to. This allows you to put your phone to sleep when you are not actively taking pictures and recording data. This is the option that I chose and I found it to work well. Cell phone tower triangulation isn't perfect, but I am also only looking for a general location (i.e. Seattle, Pittsburgh, New York, etc.). GeoTag is really meant for second generation iPhones and I imagine that you would get much more precise results with the use of a GPS chip.

Syncing your location data with your photos isn't seamless, but it isn't bad. Using a free app that you download from the Saltpepper website, you can transfer the location data to the computer via your wireless network, then after transferring your pictures from your camera to a folder on your computer, open the images and associate the data. The desktop app is a little slow, so you must be patient and wait for your pictures to load. Once you feel confident that the location data is correctly associated with your photos, you can write the tags with the click of a button. The app will backup each file that it alters in case a problem occurs, although I have yet to experience one. You can then import your photos into iPhoto or upload them to a geotag-aware web service.

Overall the process was simple and well worth the $3.99 that the app cost. If the developers find a way to speed up the desktop app, they could be on to a killer app. Check out GeoTag at http://www.saltpepper.net/geotag/

Alternatively, you can do this for free by taking a picture with your iPhone in each location, importing it along with your digital camera's photos, and copying the location data to all of the photos in the import. Either way, you get to enjoy geotags in your photo albums.

Disappearing app icons on the iPhone

Recently, I noticed that icons are disappearing from my iPhone. I went to start my favorite streaming radio app, Wunder Radio, and it was gone. I thought maybe I had deleted it by accident, so I went into the app store to get another copy. It claimed that the app was installed already. Am I alone in this?

UPDATE: I had 9 full pages of apps on my iPhone (I know, I know)! I set some not to sync to the phone and my missing apps returned. User error! Gotta love it!

Is the iPhone the new Apple TV?

I read a post on the iPhone Blog today about how an "iPhone HD" might be replacing the Apple TV. I certainly hope that this rumor dissipates into the ether for three main reasons.

First, I think it would be inconvenient. Either you have to keep a potentially clunky cable hookup near your television or you would have to purchase another dock. By having the iPhone docked to the TV, you would lose the ability to use it as a remote control, requiring some other device to be used for that purpose. Additionally, there would be further inconvenience in accessing your media. As it stands right now, I can watch a file copied to my iPhone while my partner either watches streamed or copied content on the AppleTV. If the iPhone replaces the AppleTV, it would make it harder to use files shared within a family and would require some design and engineering on Apple's part to handle situations when the phone is needed for a call, but the rest of the audience wants to continue watching a program.

Second, content updates would become difficult. My iMac and AppleTV sit at home, checking for new podcast episodes every hour or so. If my iPhone did the same thing, the battery would likely run out before the end of the day. Additionally, I would have to keep more of my library of podcasts on the phone than I do now.

Finally, it would involve not only Apple and its content providers in the policing of the device, as is the case currently with AppleTV, but also AT&T. I already have to tolerate service provider decision making when I use my cell phone. I don't want to have to deal with it in my living room. The maze of regulations from private entities is getting more and more convoluted.

Not only do I think replacing the AppleTV with a phone would be a bad move, I also think it is highly unlikely. There are so many problems that would come out of this, and Apple would have an even bigger bureaucratic nightmare to deal with if AT&T and other global cell phone carriers became involved your living room media center. At least for now, I think this is a rumor that we don't have to worry about.

All mixed up

So, I'm bad at blogging, or at least at being consistent about it. In the spirit of getting back into it, I wanted to write a little about my iPhone woes. Recently, I noticed that it is mixing up the cover art for songs and podcasts. In some cases, it also builds the menus incorrectly, so that when I click on a podcast to get to the episodes, I get a list for another podcast. Everything is okay on iTunes, so I'm not sure what the problem is. So far, the only thing that I have found that consistently solves the problem is to restore the iPhone from a backup. I need to do that again. I sure miss the Apple of a few years ago. They must be having growing pains.