Airplane Mode - Touch Cruise General

My understanding is that airplane mode should turn off all communication type functions (phone, wifi, bluetooth). I was flying across the country the other day and I had my device in airplane mode. I was still able to start up the FM Radio and catch radio stations below. I was also able to start up the HTC GPS Tool and got GPS locks very quickly. It was very cool to see my device show us flying at over 11,000 meters and 827 km/h. Next time I should have some maps locally stored on my phone so I can see where in the world we are, because the lat and long don't mean anything to me as numbers.
Anyways, I thought that those kind of things were probably meant to not run during airplane mode but they do anyway. Just thought I'd share.

not really a reciver like fm and gps dont transmit anything only recieve
it's transmission which could in theory interfere with fligtht controls

Related

GPS Tracking in a plane

Hi,
I'm off to America soon and thought that leaving the GPS and GPS to Google Earth program running would be quite interesting when I return and load it to Google Earth. However I have two problems....
1. Am I allowed bluetooth switched on while a plane is in the air?
2. Is there a way to extend the 8 hour battery life of my Clip-on GPS, as the flight is 10-11 hours long?
Anyone else ever done this?
Cheers,
M
Hi,
I would guess probably not as you have to have flightmode off to use BT and airlines generally don't allow you to have your cell phone on.
Regards
Nope, you can use bluetooth with flightmode on. Also I don't use it (M2000) as a phone anymore as it's too big, therefore no sim card in there...

Auto GPS comms switcher?

Has anyone heard or know of software that'll switch my WiFi on or off depeding upon where i am currently located using GPS? e.g. home or work? or wherever i've previously manually turned WiFi on and got a connection?
CMP
You should go for CMP - Commmanagerpro by Daniel Herrero
Its the most important program for a device running WM !!!
And I mean it.
Depending on cell towers and/or scheduled tasks it will change profiles, task and whatever you can think your device should do for you...
Exampel: My phones runs a close apps at 0100. At 0600 it reboots, turn on sound and let the alarm go. At 0730 the phone turns on and the screen becomes brighter. At 0800 a schedule starts, so IF CMP recons certain cell towers it turns on my Car profile. That one changes when I arrive at work to a work profile. Different sounds and lots more. IF my calender say I am in a meeting the screen will turn off and and sms will be sent to any that call me...
I have schedules for everyting. Nights - evening, weekend and wifi, tugging kids to bed and more....
So in short. CMP let you control whatever your device should do according to your position, the time of the day or your calender.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=299070
It has MANY details so it might take you some time to get deep with it, but from then it WILL become THE app of your device..trust me.
Thanks Martin, That looks like it does what i want, using cell phone masts is a much better idea than using GPS i guess.
However i'm put off slightly by the ugly skins and many details that will take me some time to get configured, i just want a simple background service that remembers what cell phone masts were responding when i get a successful authenticated wifi connection, and to use that information to turn wifi on the next time i'm in that area. The rest of my phone's profile such as back-light and ringtones etc i'm totally happy with managing myself as i'm not yet ready for my phone to be in control of my life! - i guess what i'm saying is the service shouldn't have any need for a configuration screen, and if it does, then it should be formatted and laid out in a standard way that doesn't look so scary or require me to identify my screen size before i download it!..
perhaps someone out there with more time on there hands than me could write this service and sell it on marketplace?!
CMP runs as a service
I couldn't resist the challenge.. i have written this as a tiny background service...
Wherever you turn your wifi on and get a connection, your phone will remember this and turn it on next time your there, also if you wander outside that 'connected' location and loose your wifi connection your wifi will be turned off until either you wander into a previously 'connected' location or turn it on manually... - turning it on manually and connecting to a wifi network will add that location etc etc... so no profiles, no config, no skins, no setup, no frills.. just plain handy.
if like me anyone is sick of wifi draining the battery when accidentally left on, or up sizing your phone bill when its accidentally left off, then get in touch and i'll slip you a copy to beta-test for me!
Cheers

Flight mode and GPS ON

Hi there,
First of all, I could find any definitive answer to this problem, so I'm sorry if it's repeated, anyway please let me know the reference.
I want to use the GPS outdoor the most time the battery allows to me. To do it, I want to save battery when I'm using the GPS powering off other options.
The problem here comes when I power off wifi, bluetooth and phone: Flight Mode gets activated and then GPS cannot be used.
So is there any way to use GPS while all these radios options are off?
If not, which is the way that Polaris will save more battery?:
- Poweroff all except phone, and cancel when asking for PIN
- Poweroff all except wifi
- Poweroff all except bluetooth (I suppose this should be the better, but some "guru" can confirm?)
Thanks in advance and BR.
Hi lince,
A week ago I was flying from Frankfurt. I switched flight mode on and IGO8 in parallel to trace my flight.
GPS worked fine, phone and the rest were down.
Huh?
You had GPS on during airplane flight???
What were you flying? Cessna?
Hope it was not commercial flight in one of those Jumbo Jets. If it was, you should have no signal for GPS - no optical visibility to satelites!
Bodisson said:
Huh?
You had GPS on during airplane flight???
What were you flying? Cessna?
Hope it was not commercial flight in one of those Jumbo Jets. If it was, you should have no signal for GPS - no optical visibility to satelites!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hate to correct you dude but I've used my phone gps many times on commercial airliners.
It can sometimes be slow to get a fix, especially with the Qualcomm integrated chip (Sirf III seems to work better) but if you can sit in a window seat, once you got a good signal it works fine.
I've used a medion PNA100, Orbit (Artemis), Orbit2 (Polaris) and Ignito (Diamond) amongst others.
As Kalbust says, the gps works fine in flight mode.
Check this list to see which airlines allow gps receivers to be used while seatbelt signs are OFF.
HTH
Kim
OK, I stand corrected.
No hard feelings...
Hi again.
After some testing I've seen that GPS can stay ON while flight mode is also ON. What made me confused is that TomTom realizes about flight mode and then maintains the screen in grey color, but GPS is still working....
HTH
Hi,
when you're flying try using GPS Cycle Computer , a brilliant piece of software which can be run with the screen turned off and other battery saving features.
The tracks generated can be displayed in Google Maps on the Polaris - Fantabidozi
HTH
GPS flying
I tested it too in a Airbus a320, no window seat. Stock Radio and ROM, iGO 8.
Worked perfectly.
Yeah I fly a lot and it was one of the first things I did when I got my phone. Ran the GPS test tool. Got a fix very fast, was sitting next to the window. I even took a couple of gps location tagged photos of the rockies. I was also picking up some FM radio stations along the way.

[REQUEST FOR ROM DEVS] Enable Wifi on Airplane Mode

If possible, can you guys please edit the default system.settings on your rom so Settings.System.AIRPLANE_MODE_RADIOS = 'cell, bluetooth' instead of 'cell,bluetooth,wifi'.
That way wifi works on airplane mode.
Bluetooth still doesn't work even if you did AIRPLANE_MODE_RADIOS = 'cell' or even 'cell,wifi'. For some unknown reason.
here is the source code for a program I wrote for this (its on the market), but its pretty easy to change and maybe we won't need my app for it.
Also posted on the issue tracker for android so it gets enabled & fixed for a next release. Here
crackertc said:
If possible, can you guys please edit the default system.settings on your rom so Settings.System.AIRPLANE_MODE_RADIOS = 'cell, bluetooth' instead of 'cell,bluetooth,wifi'.
That way wifi works on airplane mode.
Bluetooth still doesn't work even if you did AIRPLANE_MODE_RADIOS = 'cell' or even 'cell,wifi'. For some unknown reason.
here is the source code for a program I wrote for this (its on the market), but its pretty easy to change and maybe we won't need my app for it.
Also posted on the issue tracker for android so it gets enabled & fixed for a next release. Here
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you serious??? Wifi on with Airplane Mode?.... you know what airplane mode is right?... it means no communications from or to the device so it's safe to radio frequencies used in airplanes....
For me the airplane mode is a good way not to get your device turned off while your flying, so you still can play, write docs or anything you want inside your device (listening to music too)...
I don't think that is wise to turn on wifi on airplane mode!
josevtome said:
Are you serious??? Wifi on with Airplane Mode?.... you know what airplane mode is right?... it means no communications from or to the device so it's safe to radio frequencies used in airplanes....
For me the airplane mode is a good way not to get your device turned off while your flying, so you still can play, write docs or anything you want inside your device (listening to music too)...
I don't think that is wise to turn on wifi on airplane mode!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if wi-fi on airplanes is a big deal then why do most commercial airlines have wi-fi on board now?
Well for me i would love to have wifi or bluetooth enabled when im in air plane mode. Just useing the device to listen to music or do little things would save alot of power
josevtome said:
Are you serious??? Wifi on with Airplane Mode?.... you know what airplane mode is right?... it means no communications from or to the device so it's safe to radio frequencies used in airplanes....
For me the airplane mode is a good way not to get your device turned off while your flying, so you still can play, write docs or anything you want inside your device (listening to music too)...
I don't think that is wise to turn on wifi on airplane mode!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Usually, when you talk about something is because you know, or because you at least researched:
- Some airlines are starting to implement Wi-Fi on some of their planes
- Some phones let you turn on wifi while on airplane mode.
- Since iPhone OS version 2.0, you can enable wifi while on airplane mode, and now, since iPhone OS version 3.0, you can enable bluetooth while on airplane mode.
- Some Nokia phones ask you what do you want to disable when you go in airplane mode, they let the user choose.
linkmaster_6 said:
Well for me i would love to have wifi or bluetooth enabled when im in air plane mode. Just useing the device to listen to music or do little things would save alot of power
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, if you'd like this, I wrote an app and it's on the market (Cyrket)
cyanogen's response through his twitter: @velazcod maybe it would be better to change the background sync option on the power widget to disable the radio instead?
even better.
Hope we will see it in 4.0.2
josevtome said:
Are you serious??? Wifi on with Airplane Mode?.... you know what airplane mode is right?... it means no communications from or to the device so it's safe to radio frequencies used in airplanes....
For me the airplane mode is a good way not to get your device turned off while your flying, so you still can play, write docs or anything you want inside your device (listening to music too)...
I don't think that is wise to turn on wifi on airplane mode!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
American Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, Virgin America, Southwest, Delta, Continental and some of the smaller airlines started offering In-Flight WiFi last year. The planes that are WiFi capable are usually newer and/or have updated electrical and communications systems, not the 40 year old hub jumpers flying from Dallas to St Louis.
Normal WiFi operates on the 2500 to 5000 Mhz radio spectrum. Inflight WiFi operates on the 849 Mhz radio band, which is dedicated solely to inflight WiFi. While this is in the sub100 to 2000 Mhz radio spectrum that the airplanes communication and navigation systems operate on, the systems ignore the 849 Mhz frequency. You have to disable the cellular phone signal because it operates on the 850 and 1900 Mhz radio bands, which are also used by and could possibly interfere with the planes communication equipment. FM radios also need to be off because they operate from 76 to 108 Mhz, also in the range of the comm equipment. Even though the plane flies through radio signals in this range all the time with no ill effects, they ask that those devices be turned off as a precautionary measure, as in better safe than sorry.
BTW, me=aerospace engineer, also good at research.
thank you for a better explanation to everybody, especially mr jose. (better research next time to avoid being put in flames by your fellow friends here)
crackertc said:
thank you for a better explanation to everybody, especially mr jose. (better research next time to avoid being put in flames by your fellow friends here)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
haha owned!
crackertc said:
thank you for a better explanation to everybody, especially mr jose. (better research next time to avoid being put in flames by your fellow friends here)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
oooo sick burn! lol jk =)
crackertc said:
thank you for a better explanation to everybody, especially mr jose. (better research next time to avoid being put in flames by your fellow friends here)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No problem. This is a feature I'd like to see implemented as well, because it saves having to haul out the laptop to check emails and text/chat mid-flight, only to find I'm in a row with no power outlet (this happened once on my way to Japan, worst 16 hours of my life). I just wish there was a way around the NO VoIP restriction.
this is totally a good Idea..
for the moment there is an app for that
i just love to use that line.
BTW what about disable radio, sync, and terminate all related system app/tasks/resources that relate to it. Then just leave all else functional for wifi browsing and gmail viewing.
Think someone had to already think of this I am usually slow.
I think that is what cyanogen might of meant by his tweet.
rbgmode said:
this is totally a good Idea..
for the moment there is an app for that
i just love to use that line.
BTW what about disable radio, sync, and terminate all related system app/tasks/resources that relate to it. Then just leave all else functional for wifi browsing and gmail viewing.
Think someone had to already think of this I am usually slow.
I think that is what cyanogen might of meant by his tweet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, when you go into airplane mode radio gets turned off. However, if you shutdown sync, from my understanding, you won't be able to use gmail (please correct me if I'm wrong). There might be a few processes that can be killed but I don't think it'll do that much of a difference in terms of battery life or performance since it'll only be 1 maybe 2 services.
What cyanogen meant by his tweet was that he will change the sync toggle on the donut power widget, and replace it with a radio toggle, so you can just shutdown the cellphone radio and then you won't have to worry about wifi,bluetooth, etc not working in airplane mode. So, you'll actually won't be using the "airplane mode" option, just the "radio off" option...
I think that's a great idea for his rom, however, I don't think that would be something that will be done on android donut's branch or other long term branches, we need to try to put the ability to select what you want to turn off when you go officially into airplane mode, that way it doesn't confuse people and/or people think that android phones can't go into wifi because they don't really understand what "radio off" really does.
mmMMm.... whatever I just wrote sounded complicated... sorry if nobody understands, I'm a really bad "teacher", sometimes I don't know how to explain things clearly and correct.
crackertc said:
Well, when you go into airplane mode radio gets turned off. However, if you shutdown sync, from my understanding, you won't be able to use gmail (please correct me if I'm wrong). There might be a few processes that can be killed but I don't think it'll do that much of a difference in terms of battery life or performance since it'll only be 1 maybe 2 services.
What cyanogen meant by his tweet was that he will change the sync toggle on the donut power widget, and replace it with a radio toggle, so you can just shutdown the cellphone radio and then you won't have to worry about wifi,bluetooth, etc not working in airplane mode. So, you'll actually won't be using the "airplane mode" option, just the "radio off" option...
I think that's a great idea for his rom, however, I don't think that would be something that will be done on android donut's branch or other long term branches, we need to try to put the ability to select what you want to turn off when you go officially into airplane mode, that way it doesn't confuse people and/or people think that android phones can't go into wifi because they don't really understand what "radio off" really does.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if you disable sync it only disables push email so you wont know you have any new mail till you check manually.
RaiderX303 said:
if you disable sync it only disables push email so you wont know you have any new mail till you check manually.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Correct. However, I never said that we will disable sync. I said that what cyanogen meant was that he will REPLACE the sync toggle on the power widget on his rom, with a toggle that turns off radio only.
crackertc said:
thank you for a better explanation to everybody, especially mr jose. (better research next time to avoid being put in flames by your fellow friends here)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup... feelling kinda burned! hehehe... anyways, learning new things every day
Isn't there a way to just turn off phone functions? Some time ago I had an HP iPaq hw6945 (great phone by the way), and you have the possibility to turn off the "Phone" (kinda locks the sim card) so you could use the phone as a regular PDA. This way you could turn on the wifi and use it the way you like. In the G1 if the sim card gets locked then the lockscreen pops up and you can't use your device at all. Can be posible to lock the sim card without locking the phone? This could help this inflight-wifi request, I think.
Edit: This is just an idea, please don't burn me again!
josevtome said:
Yup... feelling kinda burned! hehehe... anyways, learning new things every day
Isn't there a way to just turn off phone functions? Some time ago I had an HP iPaq hw6945 (great phone by the way), and you have the possibility to turn off the "Phone" (kinda locks the sim card) so you could use the phone as a regular PDA. This way you could turn on the wifi and use it the way you like. In the G1 if the sim card gets locked then the lockscreen pops up and you can't use your device at all. Can be posible to lock the sim card without locking the phone? This could help this inflight-wifi request, I think.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes there is. You need to install AnyCut, free, or BetterCut, not free. And add a new application shortcut for "Phone Info".
Then open the "phone info" icon on your home screen, and go all the way down and there will be a button that says "Turn off radio"
As you can see, its a tedious process and it's why we would like options for the Airplane Mode, something like what my app does. For now, cyanogen is trying to switch the sync toggle on the power widget, and replace it with a radio toggle so you can do exactly what you want, but easy and fast.

Nexus S GPS

Hi guys! New to the forum and the Android OS. I've just purchased the Nexus S a couple of weeks ago and the phone is great except for a couple of minor details, but one thing really bothers me is the GPS. When I'm connected to wi-fi, Google maps is able to tell me my location fairly accurately. However, outdoors with no wi-fi, I try to have the settings to locate me based on satellite, but that always give me a "your current location is temporarily unavailable" message. I'm basically completely outdoors with view of the clear blue sky and it will always give me this message. Is something wrong
I've searched on the forum but nothing that answers my question. Anyone?
Hi,
Based on your question I am not shure if you are aware of the following:
GPS is only one of several location detection methods used by your phone. Another one is based on WIFI hotspots in range. Basically the phone scans the wifi frequencies to look for ALL hotspots in range and then sends this list of hotspots to google (only if some kind of internet access is available to the phone!). When this combination of hotspots is known to google, your phone gets an estimated location back from the google server. So from what you write, it is possible that you never had a gps fix, even when you got a (fairly good) location based on wifi.
I suggest you install some gps software other than google maps to check the functionality of your device. I use "GPS test", should be on the market. All it does, is scanning for satellites and displaying the list of discovered satelites. When the signal is good enough, you get a "U" in the column "flags" for the locked satellites.
Attention! You must start the scan manually from the apps context menu.
cheers
Yeah you gotta turn on your GPS for a more accurate reading if you're using maps or other navigational app
Sent from my Nexus S 4G using XDA App
Just an update. I haven't needed to use the GPS lately, but this week I decided to try again, and before, I have gotten a GPS fix with the GPS Test app. But that signal never lasts very long and it also takes a really long time for the app to use the satellite to lock on to my location. The GPS indicator on the top left of the app is usually yellow and only after a long time does it turn green, but sometimes it never turns green even with 7 or 8 satellites in view. Is this just a limitation of mobile GPS in cell phones?
I don't have a data plan so I can't connect to the internet while on the road, hence the need for GPS without having internet access.
As long as you have the SIM inserted, not on airplane mode and gps is turned on, and nothing is wrong with your phone hardware I don't see why it shouldn't get location fix outdoor.
There are some good offline maps like Osmand and MapDroyd.

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