My Experiences with Map and Navigation Apps on iOS
This summer, I had the opportunity to use a number of map and navigation applications on my iPhone. We drove down to Yellowstone from Vancouver, and returned via the Canadian Rockies. This was a long road trip – close to 4,000 km, with a number of areas that had no network coverage. Here is a summary of my experiences.
There are many map applications for iOS, including the built-in one (using Google's service). One of the key requirements for me was the ability to use the application offline, with no Internet connectivity. Many places, including Yellowstone, had no network coverage so this was an absolute requirement. The built-in iOS app does not work offline, and for this reason I had to go shopping to find better options.
Some of the offline apps include the map data in the application, and no further action is required once you've bought the app in the App Store. Others require you to manually download the data after the application is installed.
I've purchased the TomTom for iOS app a while ago, and it's quite solid. That's the only app we used for navigation while driving. It includes the ability to travel via multiple destinations, including points of interest (POIs) which was quite useful when we were looking for the closest gas station along our route, or the next rest area. The map data was not 100% accurate, but close enough. The ETA feature was precise and quite useful since we traveled with kids and had to answer the classic "are we there yet" question. By the way, it looks like the new iOS 6 Maps application will use the TomTom navigation technology.
I used Galileo often when walking and hiking. It supports a number of OpenStreetMap sources, the one I used most of the time was HikeBikeMap which includes bike routes and trails. In order to use it offline, you have to cache the map data in advance. What I ended up doing most of the time was downloading the data manually using the app when I had WiFi access. You can do this simply by navigating and zooming in on the areas of interest and Galileo will simply cache the data for you. An alternative is to use a tool like Mobile Atlas Creator to generate the map data for an entire zone, but I found this a bit overkill for me (and some map providers will block this type of access).
Another great app I found is MapsWithMe. The great thing about it is that it uses vector-based maps, which take far less space than map tiles used by traditional apps like Galileo. MapsWithMe lets you download an entire province or state and they usually take less than 100 MB on your mobile device. Whenever I was missing offline data in Galileo, I switched to MapsWithMe and it contained enough data to get me going, e.g rest areas, parking etc. I couldn't find all the trails using it though, so I can't recommend it for hiking purposes.
Caching the Official Maps
Maplets was an interesting find: this is an app that lets you download many of the official maps in PDF format (such as the one you find on the official park web sites) on your mobile device. A very slick feature (only available on some maps) is the ability to add your GPS position on top of the PDF. I used it with the official Yellowstone map and quite liked it. The benefit of using the official park maps is easier identification of points of interest, e.g. where to find the Old Faithful.
I had heard about OpenStreetMap before, but after using Galileo and MapsWithMe I realized how far the project has gone. There was not a single trail we did that was missing from the OpenStreetMap database, and on occasion I found Galileo with HikeBikeMap gave me better maps that the official ones! I have since then created an account and intend to contribute as much as I can.
Worth noting: there is an entire ecosystem of third-party providers that generate custom tiles (map elements). You can learn more about OpenStreetMap on the Switch2OSM site, which contains very useful information, including how to generate your own tiles on a Linux server. Also, check out TileMill, a great tool to create your own custom tiles using a special flavor of CSS.
Map applications have come a long way and there are now many options to choose from. The days of dedicated GPS appliances are numbered, since a mobile phone can do a good-enough job nowadays. One of the biggest challenge remains battery life, but you can always purchase a USB adapter for your car (this won't solve battery life on multi-day hikes though).
What are your favourite map apps?
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