If you have a GPS-capable Verizon cellphone chances are you can now turn it into a full-featured GPS receiver. Yesterday Verizon and Trimble announced that Trimble Outdoors is available on select Verizon phones.
So what's the big deal? Well, this new feature is great for us off-highway explorers because it's touted as being geared for those who travel off-road. According to Verizon you can pre-plan and review a trip online using a powerful map-based trip editor or the Trimble Adventure Planner desktop software. You can send complete guided trips, routes, maps and waypoints wirelessly to your cell phone. Here's the cool part: Not only can you use your cell phone to navigate, but also to get maps of your location, track routes with a GPS breadcrumb trail, and mark and edit waypoints along the way.
You also get digital compass capability, as seen here. It displays your coordinates, speed and heading.
Verizon says another cool feature is that you can use your multimedia phone to take pictures and record audio and tag each with your GPS location. You can then share your images by uploading the photos and videos to trimbleoutdoors.com for complete trip journaling.
According to Verizon, Trimble Outdoors is available on more than two dozen GPS-capable phones from Verizon Wireless. The Timble Outdoors app is $5.99 monthly or $1.99 for one-day use. Airtime, data usage and messaging fees may apply while downloading, using and removing Trimble Outdoors.
We haven't had the chance to test this new app yet, but we intend to. It'll be interesting to see it in action out in the backcountry.