GPS Camera 55, Speedometer 55, Compass 55 and Planimeter 55 - import and export improvements across all apps scheduled for July 2025.

 All of the apps will get an upgrade in July 2025 with the following import/export improvements:

◆ Batch Export of Collections: Export multiple point/photo collections at once as a single KMZ file.

◆ Batch Enable/Disable Collections: Easily enable or disable several point collections in one go.

→ To use: tap the new 'more' button (left of the '+' in the collections list), choose Select, pick collections, then choose an action from the bottom toolbar.

◉ The ability to enable or disable multiple collections at once helps you focus only on the points/photos relevant to your project. Multi-collection KMZ export is fully compatible with the Google Earth desktop app and can be used to back up all your collections and points if needed. 100% of the data is preserved when importing back into the app on another device.

◆ Enhanced KMZ Import: Now supports KMZ archives with multiple subfolders and multiple KML files.

→ Import via the 'more' button on the points/photos list or the 'Open In' system option on iPhone/iPad.

Apps supporting track recording will also get:

+ When exporting all tracks of a trip to a single KMZ file (for Google Earth), the app now uses the gx:Track format to preserve timestamp information for each track point. The previously used Geometry format was losing that valuable time data.

Compass 55, Speedometer 55 and Planimeter 55 are also getting drawing tools improvements from GPS Camera 55:

◆ New drawing tools for annotating photos taken by the camera tool and ground image overlays:

+ Arrow, Rectangle, Circle, Cross pointer.

+ You can also adjust the line width.

◆ Other Improvements for July 2025:

+ Added info message at the bottom of the points/photos list to indicate when collections are disabled and their items are hidden.

+ Various fixes and performance improvements.

GPS Camera 55. Public beta 4.6 is now available with new drawing tools: Arrow, Rectangle, Circle (Ellipse) + adjustable line width for the drawing!

 Before version 4.6, the photo editor tools included photo crop, resize, tilt, and freehand drawing on the photo. Starting from version 4.6, the complete list of drawing tools is:

• Freehand drawing
• Rectangle
• Circle (Ellipse)
• Arrow
• Cross pointer

Here is an example showing all tools used on one photo:

More information on new drawing tools:

http://hdocs.blocoware.com/en/geocamera/drawing-tools/

Still working on a new free-text coordinates converter (adding OSGB and SK 42).

A short preview for how this new converter will be used in the Point editor. This is recorded with the Compass 55 app, but will be available in the same way in GPS Camera 55.

Here is current documentation, work in progress:

http://hdocs.blocoware.com/en/landnav/coordinates-converter/

GPS Camera 55. Version 2.0 now in the AppStore for iPhone and iPads.

What's new?

Optimizations for iOS 13.4.

Apple has fixed a few bugs in iOS 13.4 and we were able to either optimize from our side or remove some workarounds.

Change to default ordering of points in points list + date sort options.

Previously, points in the list were ordered by the date of their last update. Whenever you'd update anything on the point, it would jump to the top of the list and this was causing some confusion.

Thus, I'm taking the liberty to change the default date sort order to "Created at". If you are used to the old style of sorting, set the default order back to "Last update" - this is remembered as your preference then.

This doesn't apply for Nearby type of filtering and it still orders points by proximity.

Customization settings for the photo notes editor. 

Settings > Photo notes editor:

Option to open photo notes editor as the first step of a photo preview after capture.

Set to NO by default, but if you find yourself forgetting to edit/review notes for the photo before or after capture, this new option is for you. It only work if your Capture settings are set to Preview after the capture, not to Save. 

Credit for suggesting this feature goes to Dwayne (Canada).

Option to customize format of a photo automatic title.

By default, photo title is pre-populated with date and time in the format of ddMMMyy HH:mm. From this version you can change this default format to match your business needs.

For example, format as 'DAY'DD'YEAR'yy-HHmmss will result in the following auto title:

Where DD stands for the day of the year (22-March-2020 was the day when auto title above was generated and it was 82th day of year 2020).

To show something that is not date/time related in the auto title you'll have to separate these parts with single quotes, like 'DAY' part above. In this way, you can setup anything of your own in the automatic title.

You can read more on Title customization here.

Need more customizations for the title or other fields? Please let us know!

Filling metadata IPTC Object Name field with Original or Stamped hint.

Thanks to Dwayne (Canada) for requesting this feature. Now IPTC Object Name is populated with either "Original_" or "Stamped_" prefix plus capture date, so you can distinguish easily between original and stamped images based on metadata:

Improvements

• Added a confirmation popup before deleting multiple selected points in points list.
• Point collection editor is not capitalizing every word in the collection name anymore.
• Using WMM 2020 magnetic declination model. This is used for establishing true/magnetic north angle from magnetic/true in the exif gps data on import from the photo library.

Bug fixes

• Fixed the bug when "PDF report" sharing menu would not be open on iPads with iOS 13.3+.
• Fixed the bug when TIFF and IPTC comment metadata fields were not updated on the original photo when image notes were changed via photo notes editor.
• Fixed the bug when changes to photo notes at the image preview stage were not propagated to the "global" photo notes settings to apply to the future photos by default.

Work on iOS 13 Dark vs Light modes is in progress!

One of the great things that iOS 13 is bringing to users is a Dark mode. This is especially good for the driving apps. E.g. my speedometer 55 app is all dark already as I'd assume that dark and high contrast is something users would want in their cars.

While speedometer was intrinsically dark, one bright white thing that was popping out to users were popups. This is now going to change and if you'll have Dark mode applied for iOS 13, apps' popups will be darker as well.

I had to adjust the default popups background color though as being by default just black -  they were not mixing well with the very dark underlying screens. To distinguish dismissible screens, I also assigned them a bit lighter navigation bar background:

Hope you'll like these adjustments when switching between Dark and Light modes in iOS 13.
Yours!
Stan.

Btw: Compiled with iOS 13 beta is already available, just drop me a line to stan@blocoware.com if you want to download it.

GPS Camera 55 - version 1.3 is in the App Store!

What's new?

Apple Watch companion app.

Apple Watch app enables remote control of a camera shutter button. As simple as this:

To trigger the shutter, the app on iPhone should be running and having its main/camera screen open.

Camera grid

Version 1.3. adds a 3x3 grid option. If you need a grid, say YES to it in Settings > Capture settings > Other overlays section.

Option to hide entire bottom comments overlay

New option allows to hide the bottom notes overlay in its entirety. Settings > Capture settings > Notes overlay section.

Date only options for the timestamp field

Now you can pick from a few date only formats for the timestamp. Settings > Capture settings > Notes overlay section, Timestamp row.

Bruno, magician from Germany suggested this feature and here is a sample that uses German long date format:

Thank you, Bruno! Wishing you many great tricks and magic ahead!

Color options for overlay texts and background

Now you can customize both background and text colors for the camera overlays:

To configure colors of your choice, open settings and scroll down to the "Overlay colors" section:

If you want to return to either original text or background colors, please use "Reset" buttons in the corresponding setting rows.

As for the color picker, both HSB:

and RGB pickers are available:

Please keep in mind that overlay background has some transparency set - thus the background color will be always be a bit "pale" in the color picker.

Thanks to Jerry for his request to add this feature.

---

P.S. My own favorite for the overlay text and background colors are black & white:

GPS Camera 55 - new iPhone/iPad app in our portfolio

GPS Camera 55 allows you to take photos stamped with location, direction, altitude, address and notes. Turn your iPhone/iPad into ultimate field survey or evidence camera!

Main app screen is a camera with location and notes/address overlay:



You can either save photos automatically on capture with options to copy original/stamped photo into the photo library. Or you can open captured photo in the preview to annotate/comment on it:



Sharing option to highlight is saving multiple images as a PDF report:



Of course all standard sharing options as email, facebook, saving to Files or Dropbox are included as well.

LINKS

Download for FREE in the AppStore!

Documentation site.

Facebook page fb.me/cameragps55

Send messages to the app Facebook page at m.me/cameragps55

Preview on Youtube