I need an app for my iPhone for geo caching. The location I’m trying to find has the degrees I longitude and latitude, followed by minutes with a decimal fraction. Eg, N 49•, 51.55.
So far, I’ve not found an app that takes decimal minutes.
Any suggestions?
MotionX GPS
Eta: corrected name
If you just want to find the location on a map so you can head towards it, Google Maps does the job.
Enter the co-ordinates like this:
51 10.75N, 2 22.33W
You can enter as many decimal places as you like, for arbitrary precision.
The geocaching.com app works pretty good for, you know, geocaching. It ain’t free but you can use it to log your finds and trackables on the spot. It can search for nearby caches and you can also download pocket queries to it for offline caching. I have pretty much stopped carrying my GPS altogether since getting this app.
Also, the GC.com app will show you the cache description, hint, size, and D/T ratings. All of which are important to narrowing down your search. Granted, some ammo can size caches can be found by simply looking at Google Maps and then going to the area and rooting around. But finding a deviously hidden micro in the woods usually requires a little more information. With proper preparation, Motion-X GPS will work fine but it would be challenging to use for more spur-of-the-moment caching.
You can easily convert from degrees and decimal minutes to decimal degrees or degrees, minutes and seconds.
DD MM.mmm -> DD.ddddd
divide the number of minutes by 60 to give dddd
DD MM.mmm -> DD MM SS.s
multiply the fractional minutes (the part after the decimal point) by 60; the result is the number of seconds
Not only that, but the cache page itself will tell you the co-ordinates in different formats: just click on where it says “Other Conversions” right below the co-ordinates.
Which cache are you looking for?
The Google Maps worked for me - thanks! Did not realise it had that feature.
Follow-up question - is there a way I can get my own longitude and latitude from google Maps?
Not on the iPhone app AFAIK, but on the desktop app then from memory you right click in the spot you want and then choose “What’s here” from the menu.
But on the iPhone you can get your current latitude and longitude from the native Compass app. Just tap the bottom menu bar and it will bring up the coordinates.