Mike's NBC-TV stories

Navigation Apps

Whether taking pictures in nature, hiking, biking, or hunting — as many soon will be — no one wants to get lost while taking part in outdoor activities.
With the help of an app, you can take steps to ensure that doesn’t happen, as PC Mike Wendland reports.

Land Nav Assistant uses military grid or latitude and longitude coordinates and visually navigates you to each point. Input multiple coordinates and the app quickly determines the distance. Best of all, it visually guides users in the correct direction, meaning there’s no need for a compass or pace count. The app is $1.99 for iOS, Android and Amazon Kindle.

GPS Tracks is aimed at those newer to navigation apps. The app makes it easy to record tracks and waypoints, follow saved or imported routes, and view track details. Other features include the ability to use different sets of coordinates based on user preferences, as well as a built-in measuring tool to deterring distances on a map. The app is $3.99 for iOS.

Solocator is for those who like a lot of photos in navigation. Take pictures and then overlay and stamp them with GPS location, compass direction, altitude, date and time. Additionally, youcan add notes to the photos. The benefit of Solocator is the ability to simply take pictures and know exactly how to get back to where they were taken. The app is 99 cents for iOS and Android.

Mike is a veteran journalist whose video "PC Mike" reports have been distributed weekly to all 215 NBC-TV stations since 1994, making him one of the most experienced tech reporters in the country. His tech stories and videos have appeared on MSNBC, CNBC, the Today Show, The New York Times, USA Today and in numerous national newspapers and magazines. In addition to the PC Mike tech blog, he also publishes the Roadtreking.com RV Travel Blog in which he travels North America in an RV reporting about interesting people and places.