Discussion: Course setting mobile app?

Stimulated by a post on another thread.) Is there any value in a mobile app (for smart phones or tablets) as a course setting aid? I'm studying mobile app development, and pondering whether as practice to develop such an app, primarily aimed at capturing control locations and descriptions while the course setter is in the field, with the assumption that the course setter(s) would subsequently fire up a desktop course setting app (OCAD, Condes, PP) at home to hone the details of the courses and their presentation (positions of course numerals, page layout, position of course descriptions if overprinted, gaps in connecting lines, etc.). The focus would be ease of data entry/capture (use of location services to help keep the map centered on the course setter in the field, perhaps "smart" suggestions for control description based on the features near the center of the control circle, etc.) Maybe a mode for aiding control placement or vetting (showing which control is next to place, which have been placed, estimated hour of completion, direction to next control, etc.). Designed to work well offline, given that a lot of orienteering terrain doesn't have cell service. Suggestions welcome. My apologies if there's already one...I browsed for orienteering apps on Google Play and App Store, and while there are lots, I didn't see one with this purpose, except perhaps a French language one on App Store geared toward school orienteering, iiuc.)

Ghettocad

I love the concept Jim. I could see this being particularly helpful for novice courses setters who don't have the confidence to pick out good control locations.

Having a dot showing your GPS location would of course be helpful. That would be helpful no only in early planning but also in actually placing your control locations.

There should be the ability to share the course planning file and info between multiple people (course setter, controller, WRE adviser, etc.).

Lastly a photo database so you can take a photo of the control location and link it to the control.

Ah, I see...looks like maybe he's doing it through Apple's beta program (limit 100 beta users), which is why it's not on the App Store. It also says that he's not working on it anymore (and thus, since it's beta and not released, no easy way to get it)? But feedback on it sounded positive (like Spike's blog). I'll ping biggins and see where it stands now, and where if anywhere he wants to go with it, and what he found in doing it.

@Canadian...yes, I thought about multiple course setters, and helping them merge and synchronize their work. (I even asked a vendor at a conference about their technology that might help with this.) It seems like phase 2 (get it to work first), and also maybe something best done with a bigger screen and a desktop app. (There will potentially be a lot of differences to work through...control numbers used twice in different places, controls that are very close, controls moved by one of the course setters. It may be helpful to have a lot of screen space to make the differences, and how they arose, and the options for resolving them, obvious. It would also likely be helpful to show a timeline of changes by each course setter to help with "undo" and "redo" after a merge. It seems a complicated enough topic to defer a bit...rendering the maps well, and fashioning a convenient user interface on a small screen, seem a large enough first challenge...though apparently biggins has already done this part well in GhettOcad.) I'll see what biggins says first before going further with this.

You can drop course setting symbols onto an O map in Open Orienteering Mapper on Android (and tweak/ update the map as well if req'd ). Features are not specific to course setting per se, but can export to OCAD 8 (from desktop version). Open source software so presumably you could piggyback on existing code base to make a course setting version.

The most useful app I have for course setting (which I always do in OCAD) is the Custom Maps android app: I export a google kmz file from ocad with all the controls and then use this as a helper when I go out to mark each spot in the terrain (or when I just hang out the controls at once).

Having a tracking gps moving dot on the map helps to avoid those stupid mistakes where the control ends up on the wrong detail, although the GPS error can sometimes be large enough to allow this anyway so you have to check continuously how good the tracking is.

Well, it sounds like there are already a couple of orienteering map/course mobile apps (though both in beta, and thus not in the stores), and some more generalized mapping apps that are being used. Maybe not a need for another app then.