title: How to store/view GPS tracks from Android/iOS app on server
body: <p>I am looking for a way to store GPS tracks without having to export them to GPX. The GPS tracks will only be used within an iOS/Android app.</p>
  
  <p>App:
  The app lets users record GPS tracks and sync these to a server. Users can add information and notes to each recorded track. Each GPS point also has a timestamp so the track can be "played" in real-time (hence using GPX). After a GPS track is synced, other user can browse uploaded tracks by querying a MongoDB track collection. When users view the details they see the Mongo document content and also a Google Map with the GPX track drawn out.</p>
  
  <p>Current solution:
  My current solution is to export the recorded GPS track to a GPX file and store it on Amazon S3 using Cloudfront. A MongoDB document in the tracks collection contains user id, notes, date/time, comments, and links to the GPX track and a photo.</p>
  
  <p>Is there a <strong>better</strong> way to store these GPS tracks rather than exporting/importing them to GPX? It's a cumbersome process and not necessary since users will never interact with the tracks outside the app. GPX files also take up a lot of space. However, I can't come up with a way to store the track data since the app is cross platform.</p>
  
  <p>I use Amazon EC2 with php, Apache &amp; MongoDB for back-end. </p>