Earthcomber for Everyone
Review By Tim Hillebrand | May 28, 2007
Category: handhelds (eg, PalmOne, HP, etc.)
Without doubt, Earthcomber has offered an invaluable tool for locating points of interest with and without GPS connectivity on handheld devices. The only problem was that if you wanted to do it without connectivity, you had to first download POIs for the area of interest and then sync them with your device. This could be a bit of a bother.
To solve this problem, Earthcomber has just announced a WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) live feed application. This version is now available to anyone with a mobile browser. That means it works on almost any Palm, Blackberry, “smartphone,” or Windows Mobile device.
All you have to do is bookmark mobile.earthcomber.com and indicate your current location. If you tell it the kinds of things you are interested in, it will find them for you.
Earthcomber content comes from a plethora of sources with a current database of over 10,000,000 places and events. Earthcomber finds stores, ATMs, WiFi hotspots, hotels, coffee shops, restaurants, live music, fast food, museums, historical sites, attractions, parks, lakes and trails, gas stations, events, and more. There are even reviews and ratings for many locations.
Kicking the Tires
When you first go to mobile.earthcomber.com, it will give you two options:
1. Go to mobile Web version
2. Download the mobile app (For new phones and Blackberry’s—as if Blackberry’s were not just PPC wannabes.)
If you select the second option, it takes you to a screen where you must select your carrier. Using the same Cingular SIM card, for a Palm 750, an i-mate JAQ4 WM6, and an iPaq 6925, the return message was that Earthcomber could not tell if my phones could handle the downloadable version and invited me to try to online version. Well, if it won’t work on the technology listed above, I wonder what “new phones” means. At least it should be possible to try it to see if it works.
I regret that I am unable to report on the downloadable version in this review. Perhaps it’s the same one that I already have on my devices? Who knows? This is not clear.
Invoking Earthcomber is not just a simple matter of visiting the Website; you must register the first time and then login thereafter.
After logging in successfully, you are presented with a screen that allows you to set your location, find stuff, or log out (which is not required). After you set your location, what the program finds is in relation to that location as far as distance, maps, and navigation.
Select Find Stuff. You will be presented with a comprehensive list of 13 items. Tapping on any of these items will open another menu with many more detailed choices.
If you want to see a particular movie, for example, tap on Popular Movies and a list of currently playing films will appear. Make your choice and a new screen will appear showing the theater where it is playing, and you have the option of getting directions or displaying it on a map. Not only that, but if it’s a multi-screen theater, all the movies and show times will appear for the theater.
Unfortunately, the map display does not work on any handheld device I tested. It does work, however, on my laptop and desktop. This is a glitch that needs to be fixed.
I also wish that there were some details about the movie such as a plot description and the cast. Perhaps this feature can be incorporated in future iterations.
I don’t know if the database is incomplete or there was a malfunction. When I selected free Wi-Fi Hotspots under Essentials, it only came up with one site, where there must be over 100 within two miles of my current location. The program does not allow you to specify the distance, which would be desirable too.
After a selection screen appears, there is an option for Nearest 10 on Map. When I tried this for coffee shops, even though 14 were listed in the initial screen, only four appeared on the map. Most of the time a map does not appear at all on the handheld screens I tested. On the Windows Mobile 6 device, was a rumpled spider web for a map with everything stuff crammed together in a very small space.
Clearly, the mapping feature needs some further tweaking and attention by the developers, but I found the directions to be accurate and flawless so that Earthcomber will still get you there.
Conclusion
I’m saving the best part until last. It’s Free! Even though I discovered a couple of glitches in the early release of Earthcomber, it is a powerful and useful program that should prove an invaluable location tool at home and on the road. I certainly plan on using it during my annual summer sojourn, and I recommend that you give it a try too. The price is certainly right.
For those who use the installed (sync version) Earthcomber application, a new green "Live Network Check" button opens the gateway to get complete results for all nearby interests. Earthcomber first does a "quick scan" to find a sample of any particular interests nearby. If the user taps the Green Button at the end of the list, Earthcomber performs a live network check. Both versions offer free service, including maps and directions. Only the downloadable Palm and Windows versions support GPS. PDAs without WiFi need the downloadable version, available at www.earthcomber.com.
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