More on mobiles
It has occurred to me that part of the cause of my worry about going to new places by public transport is that with my lousy vision it’s fairly easy to get lost in an unfamiliar area, and it’s difficult to tell when the appropriate stop has been reached.
I then recalled reading on VIP-L about people using GPS-enabled phones with some software to tell them when they’re approaching their destination. So I’ve done some digging and some reading and have some ideas forming…
The first thing is that I need a Series 60 phone to try anything at all. Preferably one with a built-in GPS. As it happens, Nokia has recently released the N95 8GB, a revision of the original N95 with a better battery, more memory, more storage, and tweaked software. And of course the original N95 has GPS, as does the new one…
That plus Loadstone GPS may well be enough. I’d have to figure out the co-ordinates for places I wanted to go well in advance — it looks like Loadstone doesn’t have mapping data for Australia at the moment — but that’d do for warning me when I’m approaching a particular tram stop, for example.
The other thing I think may be worth my while to poke at is Talks. I can barely read the average mobile display but it’s a strain and I can’t do it very much. Talks (again requires Series 60) may well make things simpler, though at ~AU$300 for a license it’s not cheap. At least there’s a trial version.
Unfortunately one can’t simply borrow an N95 and see how these things go before investing the considerable amount of money involved — I am not interested in being tied to another contract if I can help it. They sell for around AU$900. I could probably do the salary-sacrifice dance though to reduce the cost.
Hm. Maybe. Clearly needs more thought.
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