Entries Tagged 'Photography' ↓

A couple of weeks ago, I took a look at the iPhone application earthscape, and since then they have upgraded to version 2.0 available on iTunes. 

They did a lot of nice improvements on the user interface, making it a lot easier to navigate, instead of being spread across several pages, it is all on one main page.

There is a noticeable in the camera control, I did several tests, on the shutter timing to the shutter sound effect, and it is pretty close. On the old version, it seemed that it would take several seconds (3 or 4) after the completion shutter sound effect for the picture to actually be taken, in version 2.0 it seems like the image is done very shortly (< 1 second) after the shutter sound effect.

It also looks like there is an improvement in upload speeds, driving in areas of little or no coverage like Eure North Carolina, no matter what they say there is NO at&t coverage in Eure.

This picture  was taken several hours before it was actually uploaded, and it is within feet on the map of where the picture was take, and this was done while the iPhone indicated “No Service” and earthscape reported that it was unable to contact the server. 

This picture  was taken pretty much where earthscape is reporting it was taken.

I still am having an occasional application crash, usually when uploading a picture, even though the app crashed, it seems the picture gets uploaded about half the time.

It would also be nice to have some documentation, the intro video doesn’t quite cut it.

Daliesque MacBook Pro

I have been playing with earthscape for a while now and I still think it is pretty cool app, but needs some work, and a couple of days ago I talked about these errors, but didn’t have any details. Well I made a trip up to DC and had some issues with the accuracy, as well as some in the office this morning…

Here is an example of a picture that is right on, standing still in a Starbucks parking lot…

This picture was taken real close to the location on the map, but not uploaded for a while (Maybe an hour), because of crappy coverage, I had several EDGE bars, but data was not moving to the earthscape servers.

Sitting at a signal light 4 3G bars of coverage, I get this…

Here is an example of the moving vehicle issue. This picture was taken while going over the Rappahannock river, but the earthscape app puts me a mile down the road…

Then we have this picture which was taken about 30 feet from this picture and neither are correct.

This picture and this picture were taken at the exact same place, yet are miles apart.

It seems to me that unlike the way the iPhone Camera app works by GPS tagging the picture when it is taken, the earthscape app doesn’t do that and as far as I can tell the picture isn’t GPS tagged until the “Use Photo” button is pushed. The question is then why doesn’t earthscape tag the picture as soon as it is taken, because they don’t I checked, unless they decided to .

Just to clarify I do understand how GPS works, and limitations when under cover etc…, but the same device in the same environment should have the same error regardless of application.

I have been kind of playing with the Earthscape for the last month or so.

I have been doing a bit of posting as is evidenced here.

The app itself, is farily cool, but still has some issues. The biggest issues are that it is buggy and crashes while tagging pictures for upload, there is a timing issue for the time you hear the snapshot sound effect and when the actual picture is captured, and I’m pretty sure this one is on Earthscape but I do see a lot of times that the location and what is reported are far apart, and very far apart in GPS terms.

I have not been able to replicate the conditions of the crashes, but it seems to be when the keyboard is opening, and even though it is annoying, it only happens once every couple days, so it isn’t a deal breaker.
The timing issue is probably the biggest annoyance, if you hit the button to take the picture, you hear the camera sound, but as far a I can tell the picture is not actually taken until a short time after you hear the sound, pretty annoying.

I don’t really know if it is earthscape, or the iPhone, but it seems that there can be a large difference in where the picture was actually taken, and where the posting says the picture was taken. I have seen this issue in still shots as well as shots taken at highway speed. This example show an error of roughly a mile from where the shot was taken on the Maryland/Virginia Border, and where it is reported. Then there is this stationary example that puts an office building in Falls Church Virginia, in a freight facility at San Francisco International Airport. Or this more realistic one that is about 2 or 3 miles from where the picture was actually taken.

Earthscape is a huge battery drain, and I have seen where it will draw more then my car charger will spit out, so keep that in mind if using it when you are far away from a power source. Maybe I’ll do a test to see how fast it does drain the batteries, as compared to google maps.

I think I’ll mess with it for a while longer, gives me something to do on my irregular road trips to D.C. and Philadelphia….