I’ve been up in the mountains near the ridiculously picturesque Banner Elk, North Carolina, and as I hike around the area I’m curious about my altitude. Is there any way to identify that with my Apple iPhone?
Thanks to geopositioning technology, our phones are surprisingly good at figuring out where we are. That’s almost always shown to us in a two-dimensional manner, however, so we know that we’re at the location of a building, but not what floor we’re on. With a mountain trail, it might show you where are you are on the trail, even offer a topographical map, but generally you aren’t shown elevation. But your smartphone does know your elevation, it’s just not super easy to find.
Fortunately, there’s a rarely used app on your Apple iPhone that actually does show your current altitude, along with what direction you’re facing from true north. There’s also a slick program from Google that shows you this information and, of course, third party apps that make altitude front and center. Let’s have a look.
Disclaimer: I’m not near the Appalachians so I instead picked a few spots in my hometown: Boulder, Colorado. The city is generally at a mile elevation, but we’ll see that my elevation actually varied based on my exact location.
THE SURPRISINGLY HELPFUL COMPASS APP
One of the least utilized apps on any iPhone is Compass. It’s no surprise, we don’t generally need to know that we’re facing NNE and 14.333º off true north on a typical day. Nonetheless, find it on your phone (you can drag down from the top and search for “compass” if it’s lost in your 500 app phone collection) and launch it:
You can see at the very bottom I’m at 5,230 foot elevation, just a few feet below a mile above sea level (which would be, of course, 5280 feet). It also offers a detailed latitude and longitude measurement that can be copied and pasted into most mapping apps to get a corresponding overview. My phone is pointing 68º off north, almost exactly due east.
Fun, easy, useful. Why don’t more people use this app? I know, you want to see where you are at the same time. Apple Maps doesn’t offer elevation, nor does Google Maps (well, it does through implication in the “terrain” overlay for topographical maps, but that’s hard to read accurately). What does?
ALTITUDE’S PART OF GOOGLE EARTH
It turns out that Google Earth, a program that seems to be used mostly for demos and flythrough video footage, actually works perfectly for the task. Download a copy from the app store, then launch it and zoom in on your current location. Here’s what I see:
I’ve moved to a slightly different location, as close examination of the lat/long information reveals. I’ve also dropped three feet in elevation, now being at 5,227 feet. This time, though, I can see my location, on a road surrounded by fields. The real fun with Google Earth is that I can zoom out as far as I want too, to locate myself on a map of Colorado, the USA, or even as a dot on the globe.
WHAT ABOUT THIRD PARTY APPS?
Still not what you seek? Okay, fire up the App Store and search for “altitude” to be amazed at just how many “free, in-app purchase” utilities meet this requirement. I randomly downloaded My Altitude and without opting for any of the in-app purchase options, saw this when it launched:
That’s a lot of interesting information, but mostly it shows my altitude in helpful detail. Oh, and I’m finally above that one mile elevation above sea level at 5,288.67 feet!
So there ya go, three very different ways you can ascertain your altitude with your Apple iPhone. Have fun in Banner Elk and don’t forget to post some photos!
Pro Tip: I’ve been writing tutorials for the Apple iPhone and the Mac since they were first released. Please check out my extensive iPhone help area and Mac help area for oodles of useful content.