Coast to Coast tech update
This coast to coast tech update involves my new phone. Am liking the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge more and more especially as I discover more features.
The double click on the home button when the screen is locked brings up the camera v quickly. This is very useful. The only issue I will have on the coast to coast, where i will probably want to take lots of photos and videos, will be that ideally these photos will be embedded in the Runkeeper route map and will therefore need to be taken from inside the app. I may be able to programme the phone to bring up runkeeper quickly – will investigate.
The one thing that will be tested today is the battery life. Out and about in London I am certain to use the phone more. Even if it is just more photos and videos (of me:)). At 9.56 I am down to 85% having been fully charged before I left home.
One of the features that compares very well with the Oneplus 2 is the sharing to Google Drive. I photograph all my receipts as I get them and upload to specific folders on Google Drive. On the Oneplus2 I had to specifically delete the photo name and replace it with something more useful (eg taxi£5). On the Edge the old text is already selected and all I have to do is type in the new name. These are small things but greatly enhance usability. I imagine this is down to the specific instance of Android being used but it might be Samsung related.
Certainly the Edge doesn’t feel as if it has so much bloatware as earlier Samsung Galaxy devices I have used. This was one of my main complaints about Samsung. Having said that I don’t really use Samsung’s own apps.
With regard to tech for the Coast to Coast walk I think I’ve decided to use Runkeeper for the tracking with embedded photos but with Fitbit and the OS Maps app as alternatives. I’ve tested the Fitbit a fair bit and the battery life seems to be roughly 8 hours in GPS mode so it might be ok. The OS app will give me far better on the ground resolution but they don’t yet have the real time online sharing feature. Runkeeper will allow me to share my data with the world so I will be providing a link each day to the online route tracker so that you can see where I am. They also have APIs into Facebook and Twitter for sharing the data.
It means I will have to become a premium member of both the Ordnance Survey and Runkeeper but I think it will be worth it.
We have to remember that one of the reasons for this walk is to raise cash for Cancer Research UK so if anyone has any thoughts about how to increase the publicity surrounding the event please feel free to share. We are talking about extended publicity over a 2 week period starting on Sunday May 1st. More coast to coast stuff here. Donate at our JustGiving Page.
ITSPA council meeting this afternoon. Ciao bebes.
Stay tuned for another coast to coast tech update when I have it 🙂
