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Store GPS coordinates in URLs in Address Book Apps
Here's a tip on saving GPS coordinates in Address Book. First, it's lame that GPS coordinates are not a standard field type. Often a mailing address used for GPS will miss the mark by a mile, literally. For some contacts, I use Google Earth to drop a pin on the exact spot, then copy a URL which I save in Address Book.

The URL will look like this:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&q=38.343941,-75.187239%20%28Ocean%20City%20Worship%20Center%29
One quirk is that the URL pastes fine on the iPhone, but on the Mac, Address Book converts those %20 characters to spaces. To get around that, I looked at an export of a contact and noticed we can substitute %2520 for %20, and then Address Book will save it cleanly. The magic is that the URL will fire up Google Maps on the iPhone with a single click.

To make this work, I had to change Google Earth's preferences to default to decimal degrees (though anything beyond 6 decimal places is overkill).

[robg adds: I haven't tested this one.]
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Store GPS coordinates in URLs in Address Book | 13 comments | Create New Account
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Store GPS coordinates in URLs in Address Book
Authored by: brucem on Fri, Jul 10 2009 at 8:12AM PDT
Or, better yet, create a 'geo' field that will work with maps and sync between Mac and iPhone:

http://www.bioneural.net/2009/02/09/add-a-geo-field-to-iphone-and-address-book/


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Store GPS coordinates in URLs in Address Book
Authored by: Mac Berry on Fri, Jul 10 2009 at 10:24AM PDT
Not sure how to get that to work on the iPhone with OS3.0, as the share location option doesn't exist anymore. It's been replaced with a share contact option, which send a vcf file. So I don't see any way to get the coordinates on the iPhone.

Of course it does still work if you create everything in OS X then sync I guess (haven't tested it yet).

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Store GPS coordinates in URLs in Address Book
Authored by: rycardo on Fri, Jul 10 2009 at 1:01PM PDT
The Share Location button appears if you search for an address in the Google Map app, rather than using a Contact.

To work around it, go to your Contact's address in Google Map. Once you have it displayed go to the address bar, and change it slightly (removing the Country worked for me), touch Search. Now it will display the pin as an address rather than the contact. Now touching the (>) button, will show the Share Location button at the bottom instead of the Share Contact button.

Hope this helps!


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Store GPS coordinates in URLs in Address Book
Authored by: hookoa on Fri, Jul 10 2009 at 8:45AM PDT
Rather than Google Earth, don't you mean Maps.google.com?

I don't find a way to copy a URL from a coordinate in Google Earth. Or am I missing something?

---
"It's common knowledge among the clergy that God invented beef briskets for
Texans".
........Cactus Pryor

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Store GPS coordinates in URLs in Address Book
Authored by: asmeurer on Fri, Jul 10 2009 at 9:20AM PDT
I think it means to click on the Google Maps button on the Google Earth toolbar. That was the only way I could find to get a URL from within Google Earth

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Store GPS coordinates in URLs in Address Book
Authored by: Mac Berry on Fri, Jul 10 2009 at 9:40AM PDT
Only way I can find is to right click on the location name (link in the box below the "Fly To" search box) and choose copy. Then paste that into, umm, anything, and edit it to leave only the URL.

I get no spaces then either.

Mark

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Store GPS coordinates in URLs in Address Book
Authored by: Mac Berry on Fri, Jul 10 2009 at 9:49AM PDT
OK, no, scrap that :( That URL doesn't work to bring up maps on the iPhone, though it works just fine in OS X.

My bad.

Mark

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Store GPS coordinates in URLs in Address Book
Authored by: haydiv on Fri, Jul 10 2009 at 8:58AM PDT
to avoid the %20 / space issue why don't you just choose tinyurl or some other shortcut, your entry ended up being http://tinyurl.com/l5qefx
works perfectly.

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Store GPS coordinates in URLs in Address Book
Authored by: CaptCosmic on Fri, Jul 10 2009 at 9:44AM PDT
One suggested change to the URL: Add an loc: to the front of the query.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&q=loc:38.343410,-75.187239%20%28Ocean%20City%20Worship%20Center%29
This insures the Google Maps will drop the marker at the exact coordinates, and not at the closest street address it can find. Not so important for marking businesses and such, but more important when trying to mark specific locations (such as where the buried treasure is kept.

---
Capt Cosmic

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Store GPS coordinates in URLs in Address Book
Authored by: Tétonne on Sun, Jul 12 2009 at 2:04AM PDT
I have GPS like that : 50°43,8394'; 3°12,1252' that i imported from my Palm (and calculate in Via Michelin GPS software for palm)
my gp coordonnate are store in information
how can i simply put them in the geo field?
a script woul be great I have more than 500 GPS coordinates to put in a usable field in address book.
Must be finfd in next addressboo.app and in the iphone addressbook too
Apple should make something for us !!!

[ Reply to This | # ]
Store GPS coordinates in URLs in Address Book
Authored by: Tétonne on Sun, Jul 12 2009 at 2:10AM PDT
I have GPS like that : 50°43,8394'; 3°12,1252' that i imported from my Palm (and calculate in Via Michelin GPS software for palm)
my gp coordonnate are store in information
how can i simply put them in the geo field?
a script woul be great I have more than 500 GPS coordinates to put in a usable field in address book.
Must be finfd in next addressboo.app and in the iphone addressbook too
Apple should make something for us !!!

[ Reply to This | # ]
Store GPS coordinates in URLs in Address Book
Authored by: Jacques on Mon, Jul 13 2009 at 3:41AM PDT
Once you pinpoint in Maps, simply share the hint. Instead of actually sending them email use copy paste to throw it in the actual contact or into TinyURL.

I like to put the whole thing in, since how the URL begins is a giveaway that what you are about to select is a Map - a TinyURL link can be anything.

Jacques

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Store GPS coordinates in URLs in Address Book
Authored by: stevev on Mon, Jul 13 2009 at 5:27AM PDT
Though I've not tried this specific hint, another option on retaining spaces in the URL is to use '+' instead of '%20'. That's a standard HTML URL encoding escape character and should be sufficient for these needs.

HTH,
steve

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