Updates on iOS6, iPhone 5, and more...
Just a few quick updates from the Bad Elf team. The last few weeks have been pretty exciting in terms of Apple news...
iOS 6
We've tested the Bad Elf GPS (30-pin plug-in) and GPS Pro (Bluetooth) accessories with iOS 6, and there are no known compatibility issues. The current app runs fine on iOS 6. We will be updating the app soon to take advantage of the larger screen and the new Bluetooth discovery/pairing APIs.
iPhone 5
Our new iPhone 5 arrived today, and we are very happy to report the GPS Pro is working great with Apple's best-selling iPhone to date. It will take a few weeks for us to work thru the MFi process to officially claim full compatibility with the iPhone 5, but signs are good!
New Lightning Connector
We haven't been able to get our hands on a Lightning-to-30pin adapter cable yet, but as soon as we do, we'll post an update on compatibility with the plug-in Bad Elf GPS. We're expecting it to work fine and to be a good solution for people who are upgrading to the new iPhone 5 or iPod touch (5th generation) when it becomes available later this fall.
Coming soon...
I just got back from 5 weeks of business and vacation travel in Asia and Spain, and used the GPS Pro to record some of my adventures. I'm very happy to report that the real-world GPS performance and battery life have been extremely good in a variety of conditions and vehicles (train, car, plane, boat). During the next week I'll post some logs and images from these trips to give you a taste of the GPS Pro in action.
BE-GPS-1000 not recognized on iPad mini with 30 pin to lightning connector. No light. Foreflight doesn’t see connected. BE-GPS-1000 works fine on iPad 2. Connector works well charging iPad mini with 30 pin cord. Using version OS 6.0.1. Tried turning off location services and rebooting then turning on location services. No light or recognition in Foreflight.
Gary
Hi Mo,
Please drop a note to support@bad-elf.com and we’ll get you up and running!
Best regards,
Brett
Just upgraded to an iPhone 5 and bought the 30 pin to lighting connector. Downloaded the latest version of the bad elf app and the app doesnt recognize the gps. When will there be an update ? Works fine on my iPhone 4.
Hi Steve,
The BE-GPS-1000 works fine with my iPad mini (running iOS 6.0), but I was just able to reproduce what you describe with my iPod touch (5th gen, also 6.0). The LED flashes when our iOS app is running, and for some period of time after it goes into the background, but with apps like Maps and CMS LapTimer Pro, the LED stays off. Same behavior with both of the Apple Lightning-to-30pin converters.
I hooked up the sniffer and the symptoms are identical to what some of our users saw when they upgraded to iOS 6.0… basically, some bogus cached setting in Core Location was preventing the iOS device from powering up external GPS receivers. Some combination of toggling Location Services off/on globally and for each app usually fixed it, but some people had to do a backup/reset/restore of their iOS device.
Back to my iPod touch… after toggling Location Services and not seeing any change, I went ahead and did the pending upgrade to iOS 6.0.1. After it rebooted the device, I’m seeing the correct behavior and the BE-GPS-1000 is working well with both of the Apple Lightning-to-30pin converters.
So, hopefully a simple reboot or iOS upgrade will fix this for you. If it doesn’t, please drop us a note to support@bad-elf.com and we’ll get this resolved via email. Once that happens we can post a summary back here to the blog for anyone who runs across the same issue.
Thanks for your patience and detailed problem report!
Best regards,
-Brett
Brett,
Thanks for the quick reply. I’m still having problems with my BE-GPS-1000. It has hardware version 1.7.0 and latest firmware. I’ve had it quite a while and it works fine with my ipod and iPad3. With the iPad mini using Apple’s Lightning to 30 pin converter it seems to work OK with the Bad Elf app but does not work with any other GPS/navigation app. All other apps report they can’t find a GPS and the light on dongle does not come on. Do you have any idea what the problem might be? Thanks, Steve