Have application developers killed expensive GPS units?

[Slingblade61]

Kiss your sky caddy good bye. Tee droid is here! Many of us have Blackberry’s and Iphone’s, now there is a tool you can install on your smart phone to track your golf game in ways you have previously only imagined.

The name of the application for your phone is Teedroid I put it on my iphone and took it to the course.

TeeDroid Caddy, a golf caddying application for mobile phones and the TeeDroid website are all part of the TeeDroid golf system. Together they give you access to unprecedented statistics as well as the TeeDroid golfers network.

• Get access to professional level statistics and tracking of your golf game
• On course distances to front, middle, and back of the green, and landmarks
• Synchronizes phone data with the TeeDroid website
• Multiple scoring modes: Play-by-Play and Direct/Manual entry (Blackberry)

Once you get used to the interface it is nothing short of incredible. This application will track every aspect of your game. The GPS aspect is easily as accurate as skycaddie. Frankly, accuracy within 10 yards would be good enough for me. I watched the yardage change as I walked toward my ball.
Initially I found myself distracted while entering the stats. I also had the scorecard, which I probably would have been better off handing to my partner. I had some operator errors along the way, like keeping live scoring on and having the battery die after the 17th hole and not taking care to mark my ball on the device where it lay. I tended to enter it after I hit or after I made the next shot. This ruined the club distance aspect ( I hit my longest drive 23 miles) but I think that as I use it more, the easier it will be.

The stats are deep. Real deep.

• Access to your golf rounds with hole by hole, play by play information
• Round statistics such as Greens in Regulation, Fairways Hit/Driving Accuracy, Driving Distance, Longest Drive, Putts Per GIR, Scrambling, and Sand Saves
• Putting statistics - distribution such as short of hole, past hole, and putts made by distance
• Club distances - longest and average distance you hit your clubs
• Mapping of rounds - see strokes overlaid on a satellite map

All stored on the phone and on the teedroid website for access later. This will be a huge benefit to finally realize that you hit a lot of shots into the woods and maybe you need to work on that a bit.
There is a huge database of courses. 559 pages worth so far. You can map your own and receive reward points towards the annual subscription or you can request course mapping from the developers. I had one done in about 3 days.
Supported phones;
Currently the mobile application is available for Blackberry 8000+ series phones (Pearl/81x0, Curve/83x0, 88x0, 9x00).

Development is underway to release the TeeDroid Caddy mobile application for:

• iPhone 3G - available through Apple Appstore soon!
• Android/Google Phones ready for when phones are released.
• J2ME - application for Java compatible/enabled phones such as Fujitsu, LG, Mitsubishi, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, Sharp, and Sony Ericsson.

Internet access and GPS receiver (built-in or bluetooth GPS receiver/puck) are necessary, provider internet charges may apply.


The best part?


Price.


$19.95
That’s it. Less than $20 for all this functionality. You cannot go wrong. It’s a no brainer.

[mddubya]

Wow, that looks sharp. To bad there isn't a single course in Mississippi on the site. I did add it to my bookmarks and will check back occasionally though. Thanks Sling.

[eclark53520]

Dang...that might almost be worth buying an Iphone or Blackberry....

As of right now...i stick with the suckphone

[Slingblade61]

They will map the courses for you or you can do it yourself from the comfort of your computer chair and earn rewards points.

[finnk]

Originally Posted by mddubya

Wow, that looks sharp. To bad there isn't a single course in Mississippi on the site. I did add it to my bookmarks and will check back occasionally though. Thanks Sling.

I took the liberty of fixing the problem with no courses in Mississippi. I added 3 this evening:

The Refuge.
The Links of Madison County
Castlewoods Bear & Moose

For "The Links of Madison County", the location does not have good resolution in Google Earth/Maps, so I used MSN/Live Virtual Earth instead. Unfortunately I am not allowed to post links so I cannot show you the difference, search for "150 Greensward Dr, Madison, MS 39110" at maps.live.com to see it.

The Refuge does not have a scorecard, and the scorecard for The Links is incomplete as I was unable to find it this evening. Scorecards and other course information can be easily edited by members online.

We are about 2 weeks out before we will add the ability to see courses in Virtual Earth on the website. When that happens we will switch over the courses that show better in Live, and let the user choose during upload.

Courses can be requested by members and non members from the link on the course page. Typically courses can be added in a few hours if we can find the layout map quickly online, if not we request the information from the course, users can fax scorecards with layouts, or we generate examples and have the member review them.

Finn

[Eracer]

I'm reporting this post for Spam content...

Rock, you wanna' have a word with this "Slingblade" character, and let him know we don't tolerate this sort of thing...

[Pa Jayhawk]

Originally Posted by Eracer

I'm reporting this post for Spam content...

Rock, you wanna' have a word with this "Slingblade" character, and let him know we don't tolerate this sort of thing...

I saw finnk's avatar and just started LMAO thinking the same thing.

Welcome aboard finnk, looks like an interesting product and similar to one I currently use for tracking purposes. Unfortunately I do not have a capable phone but instead use a palm for mine but do not use the GPS capability because I already have one. Otherwise I would give it a whirl on Slings recommendation. Always into trying new gadgets, and even thought of getting the GPS reciever for my palm instead of my GPS. Decided the GPS was more suitable in the end though, still not sure that was the best option, where if I had had a GPS enabled phone or palm I likely would have gone the other route.

[Sandpiper3]

Sling did you use this yourself?

How was your battery power after using it an entire round? You said it died on 17?

Im looking into an iphone, but am wondering what the battery is like really, cuz im basically using my ipod all day, and using my phone all day, both do fairly well with the battery power, but if im using one thing all day long using both things basically all day (between txting, a few phone calls and having music playing, plus the bit of web surfing id be doing) im really worried about how the battery will hold up...

[Slingblade61]

I did use this myself and the battery did not last the round.

The one problem is that the software default is 'live tracking' it reports the round as you enter it to the teedroid website. If you do not turn this off the battery dies rather quickly. I think the default should be set to 'off' in future versions.

Your usage may tax the battery sp. I get mail, make calls and do a small amount of surfing and the battery makes it through the day no problem but I usually do have to charge it every night.

It's a fantastic phone with hundreds of different applications available (many are free). The charging can be addressed if you carry a charger with you or keep on in your car.

[Sandpiper3]

You have the iphone correct sling?

[Slingblade61]

........yes

[Sandpiper3]

why the ......?

im not around that much, cut me some slack

[ayasin]

The power usage when you have live scoring on is much much greater than when you have live scoring off. I've set the default for live scoring to off in the version that Apple is reviewing right now to avoid this in the future. You should be able to get through an entire 18 holes with 1/3+ of your battery left (from a full charge of course) with live scoring off.

[finnk]

Originally Posted by Sandpiper3

Sling did you use this yourself?

How was your battery power after using it an entire round? You said it died on 17?

Im looking into an iphone, but am wondering what the battery is like really, cuz im basically using my ipod all day, and using my phone all day, both do fairly well with the battery power, but if im using one thing all day long using both things basically all day (between txting, a few phone calls and having music playing, plus the bit of web surfing id be doing) im really worried about how the battery will hold up...

Guess I should have introduced myself, I am the idea man behind TeeDroid as well as the lead developer on the BlackBerry and Android versions. I developed this because I wanted a solution that gave me both distance and stats.

Like ayasin (he is the lead iPhone developer btw) said the next version will have live scoring default to off. This will use less battery.

My main phone is a BlackBerry and it uses less power than an iPhone, so it actually only uses 25%-33% of battery for a full round.

[Sandpiper3]

are you guys working on a way to reduce the battery usage on the iphone using that program?

cool to have some techy guys on here! Welcome!