Sendero GPS LookAround Support & Documentation

Sendero GPS LookAround, Version 1.3 Documentation

Sendero GPS LookAround for the iPhone has been discontinued. There are 5 applications powered by Sendero GPS on other platforms, which have comprehensive navigation features. For information on these products, visit Accessible GPS webpage .

Notes:

To use Sendero GPS Lookaround:

After installing the app, touch the Sendero GPS icon to launch the application. You will be presented with a disclaimer. Touch the OK Button to accept the disclaimer if you agree. Also, touch the OK Button when asked if it is ok to use your current location. If there is compass interference, you may find that touching the OK button does not work at first. Read the screen to see if there is an error message. Wave the phone in a figure eight motion to calibrate the compass and to clear the message if necessary.

Note: LookAround should access maps in the following regions although it is impossible to test all countries. A break-down of specific countries is given at the end of this document. General map regions include North America for the US and Canada. Europe contains The UK and most Western and Eastern European countries. Russia is also available. Latin America contains Argentina, Brazil and Mexico. Asia contains Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and more. The Middle East contains Egypt, Turkey, the Emirates and more. Africa contains South Africa and more.

To receive LookAround information, shake the iPhone until you feel a vibration and hear a swishing sound. It may take several seconds depending on the point of interest data location. The swish will give you a progress indication every 3 seconds. Once you move and want to "Look around" again, shake the iPhone to receive new information. Remember when you press Home and leave the application and then launch it again, the previous information may still be on the screen. Shake again to get new information.

If you don't hear anything several seconds after shaking the phone, touch the top of the screen to hear what is being displayed. Perhaps the information wasn't spoken, the request timed out or there is no GPS position, in which case you may hear, "Limited position data. Change location and try again."

Once you have launched Sendero GPS LookAround, a shake of the iPhone will cause LookAround to display the current Heading, street, city, cross street and nearest point of interest based on the POI category you have chosen under settings. It defaults to the Restaurant category.

The main screen is laid out with output text displayed toward the top of the screen with 3 long buttons in the lower half of the screen, one above the other. There are 5 small buttons evenly spaced across the bottom of the screen. Don't tap too hard when activating these buttons as you may trigger the iPhone shake feature.

The 3 main buttons are as follows:

  1. LookAround button:
    The first long button is the LookAround button, which announces heading, nearest address and city. You receive a vibration and beep after activating it. This is the same as shaking the phone. You can choose what is included in LookAround under the Settings menu.
    The LookAround software makes its best guess as to which street you are on and which is the cross street. Many positioning factors go into whether this information is correct. This may be particularly problematic if you are inside or among tall buildings. This is because of your distance away from the street and because the positioning indoors is worse than it is outdoors and out in the open.
  2. Nearest Cross Street Button: This is the second of the 3 long buttons. It announces the nearest street and cross street. Again, this refers to the nearest street and not necessarily the one ahead in your direction of travel. If you are at an intersection, it is common for GPS systems to get confused as to which street you are on versus which one is the cross street. A vibration and beep will confirm that you activated this button.
  3. Nearest 5 Points of Interest button: Whereas the LookAround Shake gives you the nearest single point of interest, this 5 POI button displays up to 5 nearby points of interest in the category you choose under Settings. The POI search goes out to 2 kilometers, 1.24 miles. These points are based on proximity, 360 degrees around you. A vibration and beep will confirm that you activated this button. A swish every 3 seconds will indicate that a search is in progress.
    Note: You can hear the distance to these various items in feet, yards or meters. The default is Yards. This can be changed under the Settings menu.
    Once POIs are found, a list will be shown in a separate screen with the name of the POI followed by the distance and compass direction to that POI. These are buttons you can click on to receive more details like the address and phone number. Click on the phone number to call that business. A Call or Cancel button will then be presented. The Back button will take you to the POI list. If you do call the business, you will be taken to the phone application and will need to launch LookAround again. It will of course be in the task switching list.

The 5 buttons across the bottom of the iPhone main LookAround screen from left to right are as follows: There is a beep after the touch of each button. There is no vibration.

  1. Map button takes you to Google maps and a push-pin is displayed on the screen to indicate your position. Voice Over will not announce any of the map information. Press the Back Button to exit the Map and return to the main LookAround screen.
  2. Compass button will indicate which direction the iPhone is facing if there is no compass interference, which may come from nearby electronics or magnetic forces. Once you have changed direction with the phone, touch the Compass button. Once you receive the confirming beep, the new compass direction should be spoken. If not, touch the top of the screen to hear the text output. If you are told there is compass interference, slowly move the phone in a figure eight shape while it is laying flat. When the interference goes away, the error will disappear from the screen.
  3. Shake on/off toggle button.If you hear Shake On button, this means the Shake feature is enabled as described above. The purpose of this toggle is so you can turn the shake feature off when you place the phone in your pocket or bag without closing the LookAround application. You can set the shake sensitivity under the settings menu. Normal walking will tend to make the phone shake inadvertently and keep talking unless you switch off the Shake feature. Alternatively, press the power button on the top of the phone briefly to lock the screen temporarily. You will need to unlock the screen before LookAround will function again.
  4. Setting button will open another screen with options such as, Distance Unit, Shake on/off, Shake sensitivity, what to include in Shake and the Help button. The item which is enabled will say "selected."
  5. POI Category button,which has a flag icon, takes you to a list of categories. There is a Picker list. Voice Over users can swipe up and down to change the category. Press the Back Button to return to the main screen and your new POI category will be used when you shake the phone or press the 5 POI button. This category list is in alphabetical order.

Note: When you touch any of the 3 primary buttons on the main screen, the focus is moved to the text portion of the screen and you will hear the text spoken. If you want to activate one of those buttons again, you need to move focus back to the button before activating it.

Secondary Sendero LookAround Screens:

Settings Screen:

There are 4 selection items on the Settings screen, one above the other and a Back button in the top left of the screen, which takes you out of Settings and Back to the Main screen. A Help button is in the lower right of the Settings screen and it displays basic LookAround instructions. These settings will be saved until you install a new version of LookAround.

Distance Unit is the first item. The choices are Feet, Meters or Yards. The active unit will say selected. The default is yards.

The next item is Shake Gesture. To its right is its on/off status. You will hear Selected for the active status. If you select the Off status, the Shake button will be removed from the main screen. This is different than the function of the Shake button on the main screen, which turns off Shake temporarily.

Shake Sensitivity offers two options, Easy and Hard. The default is Easy.

The "Include in Shake" item gives you the opportunity to turn off LookAround Shake items you prefer not to hear when you Shake the phone. Perhaps you only want to hear the cross street and not the nearby point of interest. This will also speed up the server response. When you Shake LookAround, you hear the current street address if available plus three selectable items, Direction, Nearest cross street and Nearest POI.

The Help button is in the lower right corner. There is a link at the bottom of the Help screen to the Sendero iPhone page, which has more details. The Back button is in the top left corner. The disclaimer button is in the bottom right corner of the Help screen.

POI Category Screen

From the Main screen, choose POI Category in the lower right corner. This screen starts with the title text, Select POI Category. The Back button is right next to this text in the upper left corner.

Below that is the currently selected item. Touch this item and then move up and down through the list of categories. Whichever category is highlighted is the one that will be used once you return to the main screen. There is no Save or Done button. Just press Back to return to the main screen.

Known Issues:

If you do not hear a POI announced with the LookAround shake and POIs are activated under settings, it could be that there are none nearby. It could also be that POIs show up with the 5 POI function but not with LookAround.

If you are not near a street, it may be that you receive a time-out message. Move position and try again.

Operational items to be aware of:

Map data is from Tele Atlas with POI content from Info USA for the US. The data quantity and quality will vary from country to country. The data resides on a server so if phone connectivity is lost, the data cannot be accessed. There is no data resident on the phone.

The iPhone performs its positioning based on triangulation of the nearest cell towers as well as with GPS. This means that if you are indoors, you can still receive rough location information even without GPS reception. It depends how far away these cell towers are as to the accuracy you will receive.

When you are outside, the built-in GPS receiver and antenna can improve accuracy to the typical 30 to 50 feet range. For maximum accuracy, give the phone some time to acquire a GPS fix outside and away from tall buildings if possible. See the Sendero "GPS Accuracy" document for a comprehensive explanation.

The iPhone compass direction within Sendero LookAround helps to indicate which way you are oriented but it does not synch up with the direction of the street it says you are on. It may be that it says you are heading West and announces a street that only goes North and South. There is currently no way to corroborate this information. Magnetic fields in the environment such as electronics, elevators and large masses of metal can influence the compass.

It almost goes without saying that map and POI data can be out of date as soon as published. We encourage users not to take it personally if their street or favorite business is not in the database. Amazingly, most are.

When you press Home and leave the Sendero LookAround app, it remains running in the background but the GPS position is not active. When you open it again, the last function you performed will display its information on the screen.

The Sendero LookAround app works with the iPhone 4 and 3GS but does not work with the iPod Touch or the iPhone 3G.

If you encounter a problem not listed here, please let us know as well as feature requests. Contact Us or join our Email Lists

Map Regions with individual countries

Africa: Lesotho, Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa, Swaziland

Asia: Hong Kong, Indonesia, Macau, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand

Europe: Albania, Andorra, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Vatican City

Latin America: Argentina, Brazil and Mexico

Middle East: Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates

North America: Canada, Puerto Rico, United States, US Virgin Islands

Russia: Russia and Kaliningrad

VoiceOver Gestures

When VoiceOver is turned on, the standard touchscreen gestures have different results. These and additional gestures allow you to move around the screen and to control the individual elements when they're selected. VoiceOver gestures include using two and three fingers to tap or flick. For best results using two- and three-finger gestures, relax and let your fingers touch the screen naturally.

You can use many different techniques to enter VoiceOver gestures. For example, you can enter a two-finger tap using two fingers from one hand, or one finger from each hand. You can also use your thumbs. Try different techniques to discover which works best for you.

Following is a summary of some of the VoiceOver gestures.

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Sendero Group
Rancho Cordova, CA 95741
Phone: 888-757-6810
Fax: 888-757-6807