Blackberry Storm GPS Update – Nav4All

Thanks to Peter’s comment on my last blog entry, I took another look at the Nav4All GPS application for the Blackberry Storm.  I was running version 8.x and they recently, within the last couple of weeks, came out with version 9.0.  I upgraded to it and sure enough – worked perfectly.  It doesn’ t have quite the slick interface that the Verizon Navigator ($9.99/mo.) has but it definitely did the job.

I took a 200 mile round trip down to south-western Minnesota and put Nav4All through the test – and was very pleased.   It told me where to turn, self-corrected when I decided to go a different way, ran in the background and alerted me that my turn was coming up ahead as I was checking email, and the whole 9 yards. 

The only thing I didn’t like was that it kept trying to take me a different way than I wanted to go.  Google Maps showed my route perfectly but Nav4All had me taking a few smaller highways than how I wanted to do it.  There are about 10 different options how how you like to drive and I believe those plot different routes for you.  Perhaps it’s just something I need to figure out which way works best for my driving habits – I like to get there fast!

To install Nav4All, just open your Storm’s web browser and go to http://www.nav4all.com/install .  The install is simple and you even get to pick between different voices and languages.   For voice navigation, this is definitely the one I will be using – at least for now.

I’m still waiting for Google Maps to integrate the Blackberry Storm’s GPS.  The version 3.0 just came out with their fancy Latitude “find your friends on GPS”  feature but unfortunately no GPS integration for the Storm.

If you have another Free GPS program that you prefer, please let me know.

Blackberry Storm and Free GPS

So you want to use your GPS but you don’t want to pay $10/month for Verizon’s VZ Navigator?  You are just like me.

Fortunately the GPS on the Blackberry Storm isn’t locked or restricted to only using the VZ Navigator.  The Maps program that comes preinstalled on the Blackberry Storm has everything you need for basic GPS use.  It will pinpoint your location as well as show you the fastest and shortest routes.  Granted, it’s no Tom Tom or Garmin but it will do the trick.  One big thing that it lacks is actually showing you time/miles to your destination.  Perhaps it’s there, I just couldn’t easily find it.

I still prefer Google Maps – but as of right now, the GPS feature in Google Maps doesn’t work on the Blackberry Storm.  It appears that the main issue has to do with the way the screen flips around when you turn the Storm on it’s side – which is the same problem for most GPS apps on the Storm.  Google is working on a fix for it but I haven’t seen any ETA on when it will be available.  Either way, Google Maps is still my preference since it is free and taps into Google’s vast wealth of information.

I’ve also tried a couple of other GPS enabled apps for Blackberry but they don’t seem to work properly either.  Live Search installed but I can’t even get it to run.  Nav4All looked very promising until I found out the GPS doesn’t work with it either yet.

So for now, you pretty much have 2 choices – either go with the basic Maps app for free or pay $10/month to Verizon for the VZ Navigator and get a full featured GPS program.   Verizon does have a 1 month free trial on the VZ Navigator so if you are planning a vacation, save your free month and use it then.

I’ll be keeping a close eye on Google Maps and will let you know when it’s been updated for using the GPS on the Blackberry Storm.

How to transfer video from the Blackberry Storm to your PC

After spending a week with my Blackberry Storm and taking some fun videos of Christmas and other things, I decided it was time to transfer the videos to my PC.  Plug it in via USB, copy them over and enjoy watching video – right?  Well, not exactly.

At first I couldn’t even find the videos, or anything for that matter, on my media card when browsing through Windows Explorer.  I doubled checked my phone to make sure they were on my media card and they were there.  After a little digging on my phone, I came across this setting:

Options -> Memory – > Auto Enable Mass Storage Mode When Connected -> Yes (default is No).  Now why that was set to No as the default I am not sure. I switched it to Yes, unplugged my phone, plugged it back in, and I was able to browse not only my media card but also the Blackberry Storm itself.

After figuring out how to get to the video files on my media card, I had another set back.

The Blackberry Storm uses a 3GP video format which, up until today I had never heard of.  It is a simplified version of MPEG-4 used in many mobile devices.  Unfortunately, my PC doesn’t recognized that format so I needed to find a converter.  Check out the 3GP Wikipedia page for more info on 3GP. 

Doing a quick Google search, I found a great utility called (you guessed it) Free 3GP Video Converter.  It’s part of a full suite of utilities for doing all kinds of video conversions – very easy to use and it was just what I needed.  Best of all, it is free.

This utility allows you to batch convert files (meaning you can select 1 or more files for it to convert at the same time) instead of doing them individually.  It also allows you to convert a .mpeg or .AVI file to a .3GP file for viewing on your Blackberry Storm.   Convert it and copy it over to your media card in the video folder.  It’s the only utility you need to manipulate video to and from the Blackberry Storm.

Now back to converting my videos so I can burn them to DVDs and show off my camera man skills to the rest of the family.