Ipod & related apps

[Back In Black]

Guys,
My wife bought me a pretty flash looking Ipod. Now, I am a techo idiot. I always thought Ipods were music machines. I had a look & it has alot more than I thought on it. It has "Weather, Safari, Camera" & heaps more. I never knew it could take photos!!
My question is, how do I get it to become linked to the "internet", if thats what it is, so I can log on & check what BOM, Seabreeze, are saying, particularly after the last few days with these very fast moving storms coming through. Quite a few boats got hammered with hail last week off Noosa. I was sitting in my office & saw the front coming through. It looked fearsome & was very glad I was not on the water, but if I was out there, I would like to "log on" & check what is coming at me so I can bail quickly & get back to the river mouth. I like going out to the Hards, so it is a fair way back to Noosa if it all goes to crap, so any assistance in what to do would be appreciated. We struggle getting mobile reception that far out, if that is in any way linked to what I am asking. Like I said, I am a techno dinosaur, struggling to keep up.
Thanks,
Tony

[Back In Black]

Come on guys, any help anyone??

[Greg P]

Wifi connection only for Ipod touch

[Richo1]

Hi Tony,

As Greg says I'm pretty sure you can only access the internet through a WiFi connection. Either at home or on someone elses wireless internet connection eg. cafe's, airports etc. Not much good if your on the move I'm afraid. I'm not much of a techno guru either but recently got an iPhone and now I hardly ever use my laptop.

Cheers Richo

[Ausfish]

If you have an IPhone you can use the Internet connection through it using wifi. But I am guessing you don't have an iPhone as you bought an iPod as iPhones have all the features of an iPod plus more.

You may be able to use the wifi through other 3g phones connected to the net but not sure on this.

[Back In Black]

Thanks guys for the feed back. So if I has an Iphone I could check the weather details while out to sea?
Tony

[thylacene]

iPhone uses the 3G mobile network, so coverage will be no better than your mobile, and data at low signal strength will be very slow.

iPod needs a wifi connection, either a public hotspot or home network to browse the web.

[STUIE63]

talk to a teenager they are up on what is capable on the latest gadgets . anytime I want to know this sort of thing I ask my 18yo daughter

[didstar]

Hi Tony, if you want to get any sort of Internet whilst on the water then you need a 3G smart phone, I recommend the iPhone. It has apps to get weather reports from BOM and you can access websites; however these features are limited to the signal from the closest cell. There are other features you may like such as an app to access this forum, upload pics etc ( I'm using my phone to write this) also there is GPS which doesn't require signal from the cell, linked into an app such as navionics you can have yourself a chart plotter. But I'm sure you already have one of those. Hope this helps.

David.

[Back In Black]

Thylacene/didstar,
Thanks for the info guys. Starting to make sense. Either way, sounds like the farther out I am, the lower the signal strength, slower the download etc. Is it possible to "plug" a phone into boat antenna to get better coverage?
Tony

[xrnath]

Thylacene/didstar,
Either way, sounds like the farther out I am, the lower the signal strength, slower the download etc. Is it possible to "plug" a phone into boat antenna to get better coverage?
Tony

That is correct Back In Black, and unfortunately you can't plug into an external antenna for better reception (at least for an iPhone/iPad etc).
In saying that, there are many apps including Navionics mentioned above that store all relevant map data on your phone so you don't need wifi/3g to use the app to full effect. There are also other offline apps useful for tide times, knot tying and more.
On the other hand, there are also many boating apps that do need to be online to retrieve updates, i.e weather.