Verizon works with External GPS puck

See another note today from a user about a solution for Verizon to enable nRange Golf GPS to work. Thanks Charlie!

The nrange will work with the Verizon BB 8830 if used with an external GPS puck.

Charlie Ware, BSRT

Potential "unlock" for Verizon and Alltel subscribers

An exciting message from one of our users is pasted below. Thanks Derrick!

Just some advise for Verizon users to try. I have an Alltel Curve 8330. I previously had the same issues with GPS not working. I actually did a few things to my phone and now it works. First I upgraded to v4.5.0.89 OS, it is not the latest but after reading several blogs, at the time it was the latest OS that supported GPS (I have no way of know if that is true, I just went with it). Updating the OS alone did not make a difference, I found another blog that explained how to do a diagnostic test on the phone. On my 8330, from the main menu, I select Options, scroll down and select Status. When viewing the Status screen I type the word “test” (without quotes, you can not see anything that is being typed). The phone goes into a diagnostic mode. I select the menu key (key just left of the trackball) and select Start. A menu is displayed with several options. The last option is GPS. I selected the GPS option, and click the run button. Instructions pop up indicating to use the track ball to select start fixing. The phone activates the GPS and gets a fix on the lat and long. After that the phone GPS chip works with all apps. I have had instances where the GPS would not get a lock, but I just redid the test and it cured my problems. Verizon users may want to try and do the same thing.

I appreciate your effort to create an app that is useful.

v 0.95 is now live!

New/Improved Features in v 0.95 beta
Download or Upgrade today to take advantage of these new features:

• Smoother/faster performance
• More robust server connections
• Course mapping prioritization improvements
• GPS connectivity now uses Assisted GPS on phones that support it for faster satellite locks.
• Better GPS connectivity on certain carriers/networks

Mapping Progress

nRange Golf GPS now has active courses in 39 states! We have active courses in cities from Miami to Maui and everywhere in between! There is some concentration in the Southeast. It seems like our fans believe that we provide the best Blackberry golf rangefinder experience available!

Thanks to everyone's enthusiastic support for our Blackberry Golf GPS app we have seen a surge in requests for courses that are not yet mapped. We would like to make sure we are focused on making sure maps are ready when you are planning on playing. To help us do this, we have revamped the box that pops up when you select a course that has not yet been mapped that will help us prioritize better.

To help make sure the nRange experience is great for all of our users, we need your help.

If you made a request in the last couple of weeks, we are probably behind where we would like to be in fulfilling it. If you have specific plans to play a course, please search for it again so we can have an updated record of your interest and give us an updated idea of when you will be playing. We are going to be concentrating our mapping time on courses with multiple requests and requests from multiple users.

How many yards away is Augusta National?

Get your yardage and see aerial images of August National on nRange Golf GPS.

nRange Golf GPS has recently made course information for Augusta National available on your Blackberry. While we watch some of the best pros in the game compete at one of golf's great venues, check out how many yards you are from some of those fantastic holes.

Verizon not as open as we thought

We've been working through some issues with very patient users over the last couple of weeks, and it finally appears like we can conclude that Verizon has not really opened up the GPS chip on the Curve and 8830. We've included some horror stories from users below. Please let us know if anyone has been able to get a different answer.

"I just switched to the Curve 8330 from the Storm. I was not impressed with it at all. Anyway, I downloaded the nRange, but it keeps telling me that the GPS chip is missing or not on. My GPS is set to on, but still nothing. nRange worked great on the Storm. I just got the Curve yesterday, any ideas?"

"Spoke to verizon again. Looks like the only way to get it to work is to buy a storm per employer.They have unlocked third party gps for the storm only. He thinks it is a hardware issue. I think its software. Thanks for the reply earlier. "