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Firmware Update Available on App Store

by brett January 22, 2011 2 Comments

[caption id="attachment_1037" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Debugging at 30K ft"][/caption]

We had a few jet pilots report losing GPS data at high altitudes, and I was able to reproduce the issue on a Southwest flight over the holiday break. Kind of ironic, but it only shows up when you have a great WAAS lock! The MTK chipset starts spewing extra "metadata" about the signal strength, which increases the size of the data packets enough to confuse the iOS Core Location parser.

We're going to submit a trouble ticket to Apple, but in the meantime we've implemented a workaround in our accessory firmware that removes some useless leading zeros from the packets. No lost data, it just reduces the length of the packet enough to keep the parser happy.

The new Bad Elf GPS app showed up on the App Store this week. Follow these steps to update the firmware on your Bad Elf GPS:

  1. Use iTunes or the App Store app on your iOS device to install the latest version of the Bad Elf GPS app (v1.0.3).
  2. Launch the app, and connect your Bad Elf GPS to the 30-pin dock connector.
  3. Under Accessory Firmware, you should see version 1.2.2 as being available.
  4. Press the Update Firmware button, then press OK on the confirmation dialog.
  5. After ~20 seconds, the Bad Elf GPS will reboot and you will see 1.2.2 as being installed.
  6. Jump in your personal jet and enjoy your strong WAAS GPS lock above 20K feet ;-)

As always, send any questions or issues to us at support@bad-elf.com.




brett
brett

Author


2 Responses

Patrick
Patrick

January 28, 2011

But always not for us in Europe……. Bad news
Patrick

Darrall Pride
Darrall Pride

January 27, 2011

Looks like they are selling on Amazon again this morning (1/27/11)…..?

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