One of the coolest things about my Android phone that I have never tired of is its ability to serve as an all-in-one navigational tool. It can download Google maps from anywhere in the world, so long as you have a cellular data connection. Enable your GPS and it can pinpoint your location on that Google map.  You can also download and install a whole family of GPS apps that show you your exact GPS coordinates and help you do cool activities like geo-caching and sharing your location with friends with apps like Google Latitude.

So then, what’s left? Actually a whole lot.

One of the navigational apps that I’ve been avoiding for quite a while are compass apps. I have never really had much of a need for it, because most of the time I use the phone only for driving navigation – after all, once you unplug that phone from the outlet, GPS will drain the battery down pretty fast. However, with spring approaching and our family looking to take some of our annual spring and summertime hikes, I went out in search of the best compass program that wouldn’t drain my battery in five minutes flat. I’m happy to report that I discovered just the right compass app called, quite simply, Compass.

A Variety Of Compass Styles

Okay, so the name isn’t all that creative, but this is easily the best Compass program on the market in my opinion. It’s offered by the makers of the Catch app, which Jessica recently reviewed. In fact, one thing that amplifies the coolness factor of this compass is the fact that the Catch note-taking app is integrated with Compass. Yes, this means that you can geo-tag notes as you’re traveling, virtually tagging locations with pictures and notes – documenting your travels along the way.

When you first install Compass, you’ll have to quickly calibrate your phones compass by waving it in a figure eight.

Once that’s done, the app will either pinpoint your location using GPS (if enabled), or through your network location if GPS is turned off. The compass itself doesn’t use much battery power, because it’s just using your phone’s magnetometer to show you true North.

The standard compass looks like one of those Boy Scout style map compasses that you use to lay down on top of a map to plan out your hiking route. But, if you want to add a bit more style to the app, you can go into options and change the compass style to “Antique”. This mode doesn’t have a moving compass needle, instead it shows you your directional heading in digital format below. This mode is really more decorational than anything else.

Probably the most useful Compass style is the “GPS” format. It may not be the prettiest compass, but it will sure give you more information than any of the others will. In this mode you can see actual magnetic field strength and declination, your directional position, your altitude and your speed. It’ll also show you how many satellites you’re fixed on and the last time you received a position from them.

If you’re especially concerned about conserving battery power, then your best bet is to switch to “Night” style. This turns the entire screen black, and all text and graphics are drawn from a simple, soft red color. This mode, especially if GPS is turned off, will provide you with compass directions for many hours without pulling much draw from your battery at all.

I should also note that there are a lot of customizations available for this app, not the least of which is to have the application use GPS exclusively for your location, or to fail-safe to your cellular network location if GPS is turned off.  If you’ve using the app for hiking and need to conserve power, I suggest leaving this enabled and disabling your phone’s GPS.

However, if you’re traveling in a car or some place else where you have access to quickly recharge your phone, you can enable GPS and make use of the Catch integration. Catch lets you take notes, photos and even capture 3D barcode scans tied to specific locations.

This lets you quickly note cool spots that you want to come back and check out later. If you’re on a trip, this means making note of great shops, restaurants or scenic spots that you discover. If you’re hiking, this means noting the GPS coordinates of a particularly beautiful waterfall or secret hideaway that you’ve discovered somewhere deep in the forest. You’ll only need to find these places once, because with Catch you’ll always have a record of where it was located.

Write notes and take a snapshot, and you’re done. All of your logged notes are stored on your phone, so you can retrieve them any time you need to remember where the location was.

Best of all, you can sync up your Compass app with your online Catch account, so that you document your travels as you visit different places. If you ever want to review them all, just log into your Catch account and review all of your geo-tagged notes!

Now, this is a Compass that definitely surpasses the features of most of the standard Compass apps out there for the Android. I see myself making use of this Compass to keep a regular log of my travels and note those places that I want to visit again some day.

Give Compass with Catch a try, and let us know what you think. Did you find it useful to remember cool things about places that you’ve traveled to? Are there any features you’d add? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.