Wednesday, Jun 26, 2013 at 15:23
You are pretty much on the mark Kyle.
A map type GPS has a GPS receiver which uses the US free sats to locate the device to within a few meters.
Most smart phones, android tablets and confusingly Ipads that are cellular capable have a GPS. ( Apple don't include one with the wifi only version for some reason).
Then a program or app takes this position and overlays a map corresponding to that position.
There are several ways to do that.
1)Raster maps ( eg exploroz, memory map, Hema etc) which have a picture file that is referenced to GPS positions. The map is stored in the device memory. These are generally the best for 4wding and hiking. They generally are the same as paper maps and don't need a phone connection.
2)Vector maps, these draw the lines by computer and are generally used for turn by turn direction maps for cars. They are pretty useless for 4wding as they show little detail other than roads and other major marks. They can show paid marks like shops etc too. This too is in memory.
3)Online mapping such as Bing, Open Street Map, yahoo or Google.
These require an internet connection in addition to the GPS and will download data and cost you to use. They are a hybrid raster / vector map.
A phone or tablet could run any of the above based on the app.
You will also read about AGPS or assisted GPS. this uses the GPS signal but is supplemented with location information from the phone service or wifi service.
Hope this makes sense.
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