Smartphone Apps for Boaters (11)

The smartphone revolution continues and there are now applications to provide information to make your cruise more enjoyable. Like it or not, in our modern world cell phones have become as essential to life as clothing, food, and fuel. The chances are there's a smart phone within reach at this very moment. 

GPS Test is one such Android smartphone application. (Free)

The GPS Test app for Android is a utility that shows GPS information read from your phones internal GPS. The app has several colour schemes, which could be used to match other instrumentation, used along side the app. It has a "night mode" colour scheme as well.

GPS Test has five screens of information: -

GPS signal (SNR) bar chart, showing the signal strength for each satellite, as well as the accuracy and status of the GPS.

Satellite positions in the sky (skyview), shown on a rotating compass.

Your current location on the earth shown as text and on a world map. The current position of the sun and the day/night transition curve is also shown.

Your current speed, heading and altitude shown as text.

The current time read from the GPS and the local time in your current timezone, as well as the sunrise and sunset times at your location.