Save recipies

There are many ways to store recipies so you can always have them with you: the Notes app, Google Docs, etc. GPS Log is actually pretty good at this too! While it’s not most people’s primary use-case, many long-time users have a bunch of recipes stored in the app.

GPS Log is great for recipies because you can add photos and notes, and all the data is stored locally on your device allowing you to look it up instantly, even if you don’t have data.

Deleting entries

To delete a log entry in GPS Log, from the list view swipe from right to left.

Share locations with friends

When you’re logging places you visit during a trip, or of your local area in GPS Log and want to share with friends, you can! GPS Log has a sister app Geospike, which is an old school social networking site, dubbted a “social travel journal”. You can share spikes from GPS Log with friends via Geospike. Here’s how:

1. First, sign up to Geospike and sync from GPS Log. You may need to leave the app open to upload all the photos attached to your spikes.

Dropping Pins

GPS Log doesn’t just have to be used for logging your current location! You can record other locations in one of two ways:

Dropping a pin

1. Create a new spike
2. open the map
3. long press anywhere on the map. It will drop a red pin
4. Tap the pin, and tap the title
5. Then select “Use as spike’s location”

Searching for a place

1. Create a new spike
2. open the map
3. Tap the search icon
4. Enter a search
5. Tap the red pin, then its title
6. Select “Use as spike’s location”

You can also do this from the map of all your spikes.

Organization

When you find yourself wanting to group spikes in GPS Log, try the tag functionaliity. Rather than offering folders, or categories, you can add as many tags as you like.

For example, if you have a collection of spikes for cafes, you could tag each one with “coffee”. GPS Log shows you your list of tags each time (ordered by frequency), so you only need to type it out in full once.

Recording your hiking journey

When I’m hiking, I like to keep a record of where I’ve been both for personal interest and for safety (like a breadcrum trail), but I don’t want to use a continuous GPS tracker. While those are the simplest to use (just set and forget) and give you a great amount of data (like your entire track!) the downside is that they actively drain your battery. For me, that’s a deal breaker.

Travel History

Some government forms like the US N-400, and Global Entry application require you to report your travel history. This can be hard to piece together from e-ticket records and the likes.

Using GPS Log to keep a travel history

If you use the app GPS log every time you enter and exit the country, you can keep a convenient history of your travels for easy reporting on government forms.

Here’s how to do it. Every time you’re at an airport, or a land border simply create a spike in the app. A spike is like a journal entry that records the date, time and location, optionally with some notes. For easy organization, add the name like the airport code, for example “SFO”, and give it a tag like #airport. The tag is optional but if you’re using the app a lot for other things, it will help you to search for it later.

Backing and transferring GPS Log data manually

You can transfer data via Finder or iTunes on Windows.

Using GPS Log without data

You can use GPS Log without a data connection, including spiking locations when you don’t have a data connection.

As we wrote in 2010, “we understand that international data roaming is expensive (so most people disable it), and many iPhone’s are locked to accept only one companies SIM cards, meaning that most travellers outside their own countries do not have a cellular data connection. Thus, one key feature of GPS Log is that it can function with no cellular data connection. However, it has some limitations, so please read this advise.”