G-Fi puts GPS on your first gen iPhone or iPod touch, at quite a cost

I love my iPhone, but I have to say that there is one little thing wrong with it: it's a first generation. That means that I can't quite play all of the games, or record video, or do all of the cool GPS things you kids can do nowadays. It's not a really bad thing -- I can still do a good 99% of the things that a 3GS can do, and I get plenty of usage out of mine anyway -- but it is kind of a pain waiting for my Google maps to update over Edge, or not having turn-by-turn directions when I want them.

Fortunately, there are already ways to get GPS going on my 1st gen, and here's another one. The G-Fi is a little box that will add GPS to your first generation iPhone or iPod touch. Unfortunately, this one is probably a little too hardcore for me -- it creates a mobile wireless point that will spin out GPS locations to any number of devices in the area, up to 200 total. The catch: it requires a specific app called Navmii, selling in the App Store now for $33. That's in addition to the little box itself, which is $100.

Unfortunately, while this might work for a large number of roaming devices, it's way more than I need. A single unit add-on like the Magellan kit works with any app that uses GPS and will probably cost less, too. But if this one floats your boat (maybe you have a fleet of bounty hunters rocking 1st gen iPhones who need GPS to track down crooks together?), you can pick it up right now.

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Source: http://www.g-fi.com/index.php

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Accessories Hardware Odds and ends iPhone

I love my iPhone, but I have to say that there is one little thing wrong with it: it's a first generation. That means that I can't quite...

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ronald

iGPS360 ?

January 18 2010 at 10:33 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Hugrobubg

I agree with commentors who mention roqybluetooth. It is excellent and i have gps on my ipod touch without those cumbersome plug in tomtom modules etc

January 17 2010 at 7:19 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

jason

Pointless.

January 17 2010 at 6:08 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Ned

roqyBT is shaping up to be a very awesome app. The last update fixed the battery drain issue. I believe it runs for about $8. I jailbroke my iPod touch for this alone. Throw in a $30 GPS (I recommend the GLOBALSAT BT-359) and you have a solution that beast the crap out of this product.

January 17 2010 at 2:27 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Rudi

Or pick up a 30 dollar blue tooth GPS module from ebay, install roqyBT and off you go. I've been waiting over two years to use gps on my 4GB first gen iphone, and now I can.

January 17 2010 at 1:19 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

FightTheFuture

does it run off of battery? the specs on the site show an included USB power adapter - but i can't find anything else that would indicate if it has to be plugged in.

if it does run off battery then it might be a useful device since TomTom and Magellan Mounts both need to be powered by the car adapter.

January 16 2010 at 4:07 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

punkassjim

Really, what's the practical application for this? I mean, from a consumer standpoint, if I'm in the car with my buddies, and we all have iPhones, why would more than one of us need to have turn-by-turn navigation running at the same time? Because really, that's all this device is good for. It's not compatible with apps like Gowalla, Where To?, or Tweetie, because the OS won't allow external devices to feed GPS data through CoreLocation.

It can connect to 200+ devices. WHY? Your fleet of bounty hunters aren't gonna be effective if they all have to stay within 100 feet of the GPS unit.

Also, they only say that you get free maps and software updates for 12 months. Seriously? You might start charging after 12 months? PASS.

Am I missing something?

January 16 2010 at 3:02 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to punkassjim's comment

tdowling

It looks like it functions as a basic wireless hub as well, so they're saying that 200+ devices can interact with each other through it.

January 16 2010 at 4:00 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

bayxsonic

It doesn't make much sense to me. If you're going to carry another piece, just buy a GPS nav system for less than $100. I recently bought an used 4.5" gps for â‚¬80. Dedicated battery and screen. What's better?

January 16 2010 at 1:43 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply