On September 25, I vented my disappointment about this discovery...

Yuck! T-Mobile HTC Touch Pro2 Doesn't Embed GPS Location Data in Photos

The iPhone can auto-embed GPS data into its photos. So, can the various Nokia S60 based phones. So, why can't the recently released HTC Touch Pro2 from T-Mobile? I have no idea what bizarre design decision led T-Mobile and HTC to not even provide an option to embed GPS location information in this Windows Mobile smartphone's photos. However, my old friend Steven Hughes of the...

Boston Pocket PC User Group

...suggested I try the freeware...

GeoTerrestrial GPSToday

So, I installed it and the associated GeoTagger applet on the Touch Pro2. The installation went smoothly but the apps didn't seem to do much without registering as a user with GeoTerrestrial. The main problem with using GPSToday with GeoTagger to add location information to photos is that it is done after the fact. So, you need to go run GeoTagger after taking a photo or photos at a particular location. It would be nice, though potentially battery draining, if GeoTagger could keep a GPS track log and then match its location timestamps with photo time stamps. This would let you GPS location tag photos even days after taking a set of photos. So, GeoTagger is, at best, a partial solution that requires leaving the camera mode.

The rest of GPSToday is quite interesting. Its most interesting aspect is its ability to go through the Windows Mobile Contacts list and map out addresses associated with each contact. You can see these addresses flagged in GPSToday's map viewing mode. The problem here is that it runs very slowly on the relatively fast Touch Pro2.

In summary, GPSToday and GeoTagger are powerful tools for a Windows Mobile smartphone. However, its after-the-fact photo geotagging requires too many steps to be truly useful and requires you to remember to run it before moving to another location to take more photos. GPSToday's other features are very interesting and powerful but run too slowly on the Touch Pro2. Its slow operation reduces the incentive to use it regularly.