The iGPS360 and AppStore applications

Long awaited, there now is a first beta version available of GPSSerial which enables the iGPS360 module to work with AppStore apps.

All credit for this works goes to Mathieu from xWaves.

Mathieu has worked tirelessly over the last few weeks and finally managed to get AppStore applications to work with an external GPS module (and this includes the iGPS360 module from Orange Gadgets).

I also shouldn't forget to mention Rodrigo from Portugal, who got the whole MobileSubstrate project started back in January. Neither Rodrigo nor I had sufficient objective-C experience to take it a step further and make it happen, but that is where Mathieu stepped in and brought the project to completion with a first beta version release of GPSSerial today.

For more details and installation instructions on the new GPSSerial software, please check out the GPSSerial post on Mathieu's blog.

In order to get the GPSSerial icon on your SpringBoard, remove the SpringBoard cached installation plist com.apple.mobile.installation.plist in /var/mobile/Library/Caches and respin the SpringBoard with the command killall SpringBoard.

If you have the iGPS360 module, make sure to select that in the GPSSerial software.

If the solution works for you, consider showing your support to Mathieu and possibly donate a few dollars to him for all his hard work. You can click here to get to his xGPS blog and then on his blog click on the donate button in the top right.

As with all beta releases, the current release is most likely not bug-free. You can report problems that you encounter in on new section of the xGPS forum. Needless to say, it is a work in progress. If you need help, consult the community on the forum.

I have installed the software on my 2.2.1 iPod (first generation) and 2.2 iPhone (first generation) and can confirm it works for the following free apps that I tried (make sure you have a satellite lock when you try it out):

• xGPS (with the iPhone 3G GPS as the selected GPS to use)
  
• Google Earth
  
• Trailguru
  
• GPS Tracker
  
• GPS Ally
  
• GPS Log
  
• Zillow
  

I don't have US maps for iDA, so I can't tell you if it works with iDA, nor have I tried any of the GeoCaching apps. Maybe some other people (in Europe) can give feedback...

Enjoy!