Real-World Observations about Mapping Apps

You have a phone. It should have a translation app. We’ve use this many times in all the places where nobody speaks English. In markets where you want to buy something, I’ve found that the calculator is the best thing to use for haggling…also hand signs and making faces.

Something I’ve always wanted to have on my iPhone is an app that allows me to use third-party maps (on paper) with the built-in GPS. Often you’ll get a trail map from the Park Service that’s really good compared to the stuff you find online (for free). Other cases you’ll be so far off the grid, that paper map is the only thing you can rely on. I’m great with that. I can drop that paper map, I can get it wet and dirty, etc. All things I wouldn’t want to do with a $1000+ device. But the one thing those paper maps don’t have is the GPS dot telling me where I am and which way I’m facing.

So my dream app would allow me to take a picture of that paper map including its scale and it would allow me to select one or several reference points (for example where I am right now) in order to calibrate it to the GPS receiver. From the on, the app would show me the GPS dot you usually see in Maps overlaid on that map image. Now I have a detailed trail map combined with real-time GPS feedback of where I am on that map.

I’m pretty sure Avenza Maps allows you to do this. I used it years ago, and it allows you to import your own map images. But I didn’t use it for long (or recently) enough to fully recommend it as being the solution you’re looking for. Probably worth trying though.

I’ve not had experience with this in the US, so that may be true there. But in my experience elsewhere, it’s not about the quality of the data (as you say, everyone’s using essentially get same data feeds), but the quality of its presentation and context.

Apple & Google Maps are general purpose and have to use a one-size-fits-all model. So they can’t design it around the peculiarities of a local transport network or information that is particularly important. Your experience of last bus times is a good example of that. I’ve just found that local apps tend to present the options more clearly and have more useful ancillary information.

As to the issue of resources, while Apple & Google certainly have more, public transport is a small part of what they’re trying to do, and it can be neglected compared to developers who are focused only on making public transport routing as good as it can be. (In the case of Apple & Google, the public transport part also has to fit into the overall design of an app which seems designed for and focused primarily on driving directions.) So it’s not always an issue of total resources available. I’m not saying that all local apps are better or discounting your experience in the US. Just that I think there are reasons why it can also be the reverse elsewhere.

Thanks, but Avenza wasn’t capable of using any of the maps I had lying around. I tried one from a regional park, and two from the NPS and a CA SP. It wasn’t able to ‘detect’ the coordinates.

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“Here we go” app for iPhone and Android does what you need, https://wego.here.com/?x=ep&map=39.6249,-75.8351,10,normal.It does show bus and train stops. And yes, it does understand GPS coordinates…if you can figure out how to type them.

It helps to have local transit apps, too. I’d have quite a time finding my way around DC with Apple or Google maps. The Metro app does everything transport. Google even takes you inside some buildings, like stadiums and theaters, but it doesn’t show you how to drive to Paris, France any more.

Sounds like the fellow who was trying to use GPS to find his way out of the Atacama desert in Chile. His GPS showed him exactly where he was, but couldn’t show him how to get anywhere since there weren’t any roads. I like paper maps, especially the laminated ones.

I often use the Apple map app offline. Bring up a map of the area you want and take a pic.
The photos can be zoomed and moved almost like the map app.

Taking a different tack, you might be interested in giving ViewRanger a try. It has a very good selection of premium maps (including for the US) which are ideal for hiking, etc.

In conversations with friends after we got back, one person pointed out that we could have gotten Google Maps to download offline maps for the areas we were in. Just tap the hamburger menu in the upper-left corner, tap Offline Maps, tap Custom Map, pinch to fit the desired map area into the screen, and tap Download.

In my experience (iPad Air 2, current iOS at the various times), Google Maps has a minimum download area that is often much larger than the area that interests me. Also, the downloaded map has only a fraction of the detail available when I zoom in while online. I have not seen any options for the offline maps that might affect this. (The only choices I see for saving an offline map are the total area and the orientation.) Have I missed something? Am I doing something wrong? If neither, I suspect that Google Maps offline would not be as useful as one would hope.

IMHO Apple could fix this offline situation in Maps quite easily. Add a toggle in Maps prefs to go into “caching mode” or similar. In that mode, whatever you look at in Maps gets cached to full detail. If there’s no reception or wifi, Maps just draws from that cache. Give the app a blue status bar or something when it’s enabled so people don’t forget. Tap on that blue status bar and you’re shown how much memory is being gobbled up by that cache and presented with the toggle to turn it back off (which would purge that cache). If that cache is left to grow and it uses up a substantial part of people’s memory display a warning with options to turn off caching and/or purge the cache.

It’s a simple mechanism that will stay out of people’s way who aren’t interested, but serves all well who are afraid they might end up outside of data coverage. Just cache the area you’re going to be exploring ahead of time and done.

Obviously, Apple likes to see users as these potential customers who are always online, but especially when it comes to mapping that’s often just not the case. Ask anybody who lives in a more remote area or who enjoys backcountry hiking. Or just sightseeing out of a plane with no wifi.

There would also have to be some way to indicate what area should be prefetched. Caching is by nature retrospective.

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ViewRanger (free) allows you to choose a specific area to download (OpenStreetMap-based) maps and then manage them later so you can delete ones you no longer need. Works well if you need this kind of thing.

Google Translate was indeed quite useful, although I found that it was often tricky to bring up quickly enough to be helpful when listening. We never had to resort to it for an actual conversation, since people who didn’t speak English usually just went and got someone else who did (at least a little).

Interesting—I’ve not explored that feature, but it would seem to be relevant if you’re planning on relying on it.

Apple Maps may cache that data for offline viewing as well. Frankly, I think you’d be insane to gamble on an automatic caching algorithm providing reliable offline navigation. This limitation of Apple Maps is just another reason why you should always have multiple mapping apps available. If you have other recommendations, leave a comment!

On an all-day road trip this past week, I can give a first hand answer to this: Apple Maps will run out of maps, if you lose connection. However, the line and next turns appear to be cached. But in the meantime, until new maps can be brought in via a live data connection, your display will show you driving through a grid, somewhat Tron-like.

I also tried Google’s offline maps on this same trip, for a different portion where I expected significant loss of cellular reception (the Adirondack Park and the Green Mountains of Vermont). It worked almost flawlessly. I can’t say the bug we saw was related to offline caching, but we saw, on the CarPlay display, the next direction failed to update several times. It appeared to only be a display bug… the map still showed our live location, and my wife was able to tap around on the phone and get my car’s display to correct itself, but it did cause one wrong turn.

Google Maps Tip: if you download a map, there’s a maximum geographic area. For all-day interstate trips, that may not be large enough! All you need to do is download a second map that overlaps just a little. I saw no trouble when my trip started within one, and ended (with many cellular drops) on the second map.

Lastly, I also had Maps.me on the phone with all maps cached. I never used it to navigate because it does not have CarPlay, but I’ve used for trail navigation for years, as it gets its maps from OpenStreetMap, which has a lot of trails. I tested the turn-by-turn route selection (to confirm as an offline backup) and it did choose the same 5hr route from northern NY through the mountains to northeastern Mass. Definitely worth having on your phone.

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To find yourself on a map, it’s best to start out with the map and check periodically as you go.

Which way you’re facing is what a compass is for. Not the one in a phone which is easily confused, but a real one. You can get decent ones for cheap, but don’t get a button compass, they’re junk. Get liquid filled, with a movable ring that lets you set the magnetic declination, and look up the declination for each area you go. I grew up in the midwest where it was only about 2 degrees and didn’t matter much and was startled that in the pacific northwest it’s +/- 22 degrees which would get you lost in a hurry if you didn’t correct for it.

One of the things that I loved about Norway was that you could get off the train or bus in any random small town, and for about $1 buy a local orienteering map. They mostly don’t (didn’t?) treat orienteering as purely a race like americans do, but as a way for everyone to get out in the country / forest and have pleasant time with some fun goals, and get extra practice at not getting lost. A woman I met said that when she was 5 years old, her family gave her her first test–to find her way across about a mile of forest alone. She was watched over, but didn’t find that out until it was her little brother’s turn.

For serious backcountry hiking (bushwalking in Australia) I prefer an offline topographic map or at least a path tracker so I can return to a key point like a footbridge. Before iPhones (2004) I used a Garmin GPS for tracking hikes. I transferred the data to a topographic map app when I got home:

I suppose I should look for similar feature in an iPhone app.

I went to Iceland a year ago and in addition to our iPhones and iPads I also took a Garmin 64s handheld GPS unit. There were a good number of times where we’d be without cell reception for a number of hours, and occasionally more than a day, and having a “real” GPS was incredibly helpful. I downloaded maps in advance (and geocaches, but that’s a different post) and had no trouble navigating around the country. It has rechargeable batteries, so no worries about draining my phone either. And the major benefit is that you can find where you are even deep into the mountains. Not incredibly expensive either, and you can download maps for a lot of the world so it’s not required that you buy them from Garmin.

I also used maps.me quite a lot, having pre-downloaded maps of the whole of Iceland beforehand.

I’m totally fine with Apple Maps as I use it all the time, but it was nice to know I didn’t need to depend on it when traveling if I was without either reception or phone battery.

I’m glad both Apple and Google Maps support transit now, but I was disappointed a couple of weeks ago when I was trying to get from New Haven, CT back to NYC JFK Airport on the cheap. Neither offer a “cheaper instead of faster” option so they just said take the Amtrak — starting at $44 and up to $141 if you take the Acela, instead of Metro North starting at $17.75. It was the same thing once in NYC — take the more expensive commuter rail instead of the subway. So I had to use multiple apps and websites and write it all out on paper. I’m sure both Apple and Google know know all the transit routes and fares. Why can’t they put it all together and offer options within transit like they offer car, walk, transit or ride?

This is why you’re better off with CityMapper – it lists multiple options, along with the trip duration and cost.