Hey everybody.

Paul Bodnar (author of Pocket PCT) and I have just put the finishing touches on a Pacific Crest Trail iPhone app and we thought you'd be interested. The first app, "Guthook's Hiking Guides: PCT SoCal" covers from Mexico to Tehachapi. The remainder of the trail will be available soon, and hopefully in the future there will be more trail systems to add.

Check it out at the App Store, or www.guthooksguides.com and let me know what you think!

Hey Ryan, Great idea! Im a hiking iphone user would def get this if hiking the pct. What map sources does the app use? It looks like google? its the standard? terrain?
Can you elaborate on how you can pre-download maps? Or maybe a little demo video on youtube would really help..

where can I get something like this for an android phone?

Jason, good idea for the demo on youtube. I'm realizing just how much of a luddite I must have been in the past few years, since I've had to teach myself all kinds of stuff that I think is usually common knowledge these days... like how to use Youtube :) The basics-- the maps are an open source topo map (opencyclemap) that most of the gps apps out there seem to use (like GaiaGPS and MotionX). As for the downloading of the map set, it's a pre-defined set of maps, so all you have to do is hit a button and let it go for a while. The whole set is around 400 MB, so it takes a while (I timed it at 25 minutes on my wifi connection), but you don't have to do it all at once.

Jeff-- I knew that was going to be one of the first questions... I'd love to make an Android version, but I don't have a timeline for that. I had to teach myself the iPhone programming language from scratch, and from what I understand Android is quite different. It's on my long-distance radar, but for now I'm going to try to get the iPhone version perfected before I branch out too much.

haha, youtube is pretty easy. If you can teach yourself how to make an iphone app you can handle that. if using mac just use imovie or windows window movie maker. both pretty straight forward.


So in the app do you have the option to switch between any open source maps? (like the ones I like in Gaia are ESRI USGS TOPO, or the newer CalTopo maps... I really liked the mytopo.com maps but they closed off their iphone source because they made their own sh*tty app.) . And is there just one zoom layer for all?


What i think you should do is contact Gaia GPS and try to work with them to integrate your app into Gaia. That way you could have the different map and zoom level options (if you can't now). and have the full power of Gaia with all your great PCT data (trail line,pix, waypoints, resupplies, water cashes) as an overlay.
You could still keep your app in the store but make the overlay data in Gaia available as an "In App" purchase

I'll put those in the list of things to look into, Jason... I'm taking baby steps for now :)

I looked into using the USGS topos at first, but the cyclemap topos were the easiest to get working. I'm keeping my eye on one other source for maps, but it's not the top of my priority list for now. The folks at Gaia seemed to have the same opinion of the MyTopo decision... bummer. But I'll keep the options in mind. Right now I've got what seems to be a stable app that works, so I'm focusing my time and effort on finishing the rest of the PCT before I move on to major programming updates.

+ 1 on Jason's suggestion. Thanks for working on this project. Would also agree that a YouTube demo would be useful (and probably help your sales).

I will definitely look into it, although I can't promise anything ;)

Youtube demo... I'm going to start that soon and hopefully have something up within a week or two.

I have an Android but I'm still excited that this exists. It only leads the way for more trails and formats.

Paul is talking a lot about trying to find a way to get an Android version, but like I said-- it's a long way off. I'll let everyone know all about the progress, though. I like being kept in the loop when other people are making new things, so I'll do what I can to do the same for others.

Okay, Jason. You were right. Apparently Youtube isn't that difficult to figure out. Who knew?

Demo video now up on the front page of guthooksguides.com. Enjoy!

Edited by ryan.c.linn on 03/03/2012 04:23:52 MST.

For anyone who's interested, the Central California section of the PCT app is available now (Tehachapi to Echo Lake). The Northern California section (Echo Lake to Oregon) should be available in a little over a week. Oregon and Washington should be done before ADZPCTKO. Enjoy!

For anyone who's following this, all of California and Oregon are up for sale now, and Washington should be available before Kickoff. After that, I'm moving on to a few locations in New England. Enjoy!

www.guthooksguides.com

Thumbs up for the New England ones. Do you have a mailing list for when new/updates are available?

I'm glad you're excited about this, Nathan! No mailing list exactly, but I've been using my blog's facebook page as the news feed for the apps. I can tell you now that the two NE apps I'll be making this spring are for Monadnock and the Camden Hills-- not quite the same size as the PCT, but I'll hopefully have some larger New England areas ready to go toward the end of the summer.

The Washington Section of the PCT just hit the app store a few minutes ago. That means the apps for the entire PCT are available now (hooray!). You can see the whole bunch here.

For the Northeast, I've got an app for the Camden Hills region of Maine coming out in a week or less. Monadnock in New Hampshire should be coming soon afterward.

And for all the Android users out there, we're starting to look more seriously at the coding process for Android. My business partner seems confident that we can have that done by next year's hiking season if all goes well. Keep your fingers crossed...

Hikers in New England with iPhones, the apps for the Camden Hills of Maine, and Monadnock/Sunapee (including the Greenway connecting the two) are now available. Check them out at the App Store, or take a look at the Guthook's Guides Website, which I redesigned the other day so it doesn't totally suck anymore ;)

Cheers!
Ryan