[vonBaloney]

No it isn't. I use a freeware GPS Logger II app on an old Blackberry phone and it doesn't drain the battery to any signifianct degree over normal phone usage.

GPSLogger II Homepage - 100% free Software for BlackBerry

Eh, I really don't think so. GPS logging all the time, phone can never ever "idle" -- it must not lose satellite acquisition as re-acquiring fix from several sats is really a drain. So it must stay in more or less constant communication with a minimum of 4 satellites all the time (or be trying to re-acquire if you go indoors and don't turn it off). Sure, if you shut down every other function (like the phone itself) it will last longer, but who wants to do that? You can't run the GPS all day (with the phone on and using it otherwise as you normally would) and still get the same battery life as if you had the GPS off all day. There is no free lunch. Possibly the latest chips are real power-savers, but it is certainly a draw on my less than a year old smartphone...

[kh1234567890]

Just get a cheap no-display little GPS logger and rub off the lettering. No-one will notice or care that you have it.

[Smeggypants]

Eh, I really don't think so. GPS logging all the time, phone can never ever "idle" -- it must not lose satellite acquisition as re-acquiring fix from several sats is really a drain. So it must stay in more or less constant communication with a minimum of 4 satellites all the time (or be trying to re-acquire if you go indoors and don't turn it off). Sure, if you shut down every other function (like the phone itself) it will last longer, but who wants to do that? You can't run the GPS all day (with the phone on and using it otherwise as you normally would) and still get the same battery life as if you had the GPS off all day. There is no free lunch. Possibly the latest chips are real power-savers, but it is certainly a draw on my less than a year old smartphone...

Well I'm sure you're not calling me a liar, so I'll just carry on enjoying GEOLogging my shoots as described.

[vonBaloney]

Well I'm sure you're not calling me a liar, so I'll just carry on enjoying GEOLogging my shoots as described.

No, of course not. But it sounds like you are using your device as ONLY a GPSlogger and not even a phone, not as one more drain on already too short typical smartphone battery life. I have a Holux logger -- runs all day but that's all it does.

[eofster]

Recently I was struggling with the same problem: finding a decent iPhone app that would record GPS tracks for later geotagging. I couldn’t find any that I liked and I wrote my own. I invite you to try Trckr. I designed it to be light, easy to use, and to save the battery life as much as possible while still recording tracks in background.

I understand that this might look like advertising, but I really struggled with this problem, and I wanted to share my results with you. I have Ricoh GR camera myself that I love, and I always wanted to geotag photos made with it without carrying any devices other than iPhone.

[eofster]

Possibly the latest chips are real power-savers, but it is certainly a draw on my less than a year old smartphone...

You’re exactly right. Speaking about latest iPhones, starting from iPhone 5, if application supports this, the whole device can be put to sleep except GPS module. Later, when GPS module gathers a bunch of location updates, it wakes the device and hands those new locations back to the OS. Apple claims that this leads to 40% longer battery life. As a developer, I can tell that it really works. That’s one of the reasons why it is much better on the newer devices.

But not only device is important. Different applications can behave differently when running in the background. Ideally when running in the background, the app should do only minimal amount of work to do its task. Not all applications care about it.