What would you want in the perfect mapping app?

[shane4x4]

I'm doing a little un-official research on what it would take to create the 'ultimate' mapping app for exploring unpaved parts of our country.

So...if you could wave a magic wand and build the perfect app for exploring, what features would it have?

Map types?

• USGS Topo
• Satellite
• Streets
• USFS/BLM Motor Vehicle Use Maps
• Offline maps
• Something else?

Points of Interest?

• Camping
• Gas
• Fishing
• Lodging
• What else?

Trails?

• Local trails
• Overland routes
• Trail difficulty
• Trail status (seasonal trails)
• Other trail info?

Also, how much would the perfect app be worth? I've paid $19.99 for Gaia, $9.99 for MotionX, and much more on some options...so to me this perfect app would have plenty of value

Thanks for your feedback!

 

[LocoCoyote]

If I may add my 2 cents....

I don't think that any app could ever be the "perfect" app for everyone. Needs, way it is used, etc....is different for everyone.

I think that instead of reinventing the wheel, you look at those apps you already paid for and ask yourself "what is it about this app that doesn't work for me"? "what does work?"...and then share that with the developers.....perhaps they will agree and one day that missing thing becomes a part of an app you already own.

The more "features" an app has, the more it moves away from what ever specific purpose it was originally designed for. Compromises are made and that specific app evolves into a more general tool....pissing off everyone.


anyway, those are my 2 cents (btw, those are Euro cents, so you get more bang for your buck!) ;-)

 

[nuclearmonkey]

After playing with several apps on an iPad, I ended up gravitating towards Gaia. The overlay feature and their POI's sold me on it. While less 'pretty' and 'cool' than MotionX, I found it more streamlined, and slightly more efficient. The amount of POI's that Gaia includes is staggering, and personally, I like knowing that if I look at the map, I can see if there's anything interesting around me that my advanced research may have missed.

Where it falls short in my opinion is the GUI. I think they could do a better job visually (a la MotionX).

Things I wish it had..
- Off-road trails (with difficulty, mileage, approx time to complete, etc). I use Trail Damage quite a bit, but again... if your plans go sideways on your trip and are forced to adjust your itinerary, it'd be all warm and fuzzy knowing you have backup plans already on the mapping program.

- Restrictions at certain places (for example, where pets are not allowed), or other useful info that may effect decision making.

- Ability to save images to the map (or points) - For instance, at a turn off along a road, or a specific cave to look for, ...

 

[shane4x4]

very good point...FYI I think you can take pictures with the Gaia app, but I'll confirm it.

True trail information would be very helpful, at the very least the MVUM maps for certain areas could be useful, at lest then I know I'm on a legal trail since they're not always marked.

Restrictions seems like it would be hard to gather all that data...but certainly possible.

I like that Gaia has POIs, but most of them are useless. e.g. most of the off-road trail icons I click on I've never heard of, and there is no information other than a name and coordinates. POIs with useful information are high on my list.

I think I'm going to start a newsletter to talk about navigation in the backcountry, would that type of info be of interest to anyone?

Here's a link to a mailchimp list, sign up if you want. I'll probably send notes out about once a month, and of course I'll never use your info for anything else. I just want to share my passion for this stuff =)

Back Country Navigation

Thanks for your input!!

 

[shane4x4]

FYI, DeLorme released their Earthmate app for anyone to use at $29.99/year, before you had to have an InReach device:
Earthmate for Mobile Outdoor Annual Subscription - DeLorme

Also, Alltrails.com updated their app yesterday in a very big way:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/alltrails-hiking-mountain/id405075943?mt=8

 

[1leglance]

Oh boy do I ever want to put some thought into this...
but next week as I am at work and counting the hours till I can run away for the weekend..

 

[robgendreau]

You don't seem to be taking into account the different TYPES of maps, which makes a huge difference.

Raster maps often have nice detail, and there are tons out there, but they take up TONS of space. That's what Gaia GPS uses for instance. Avenza's PDF Maps uses PDFs, which are vector based, and hence can be smaller. But you can't route on these; IOW, unless you draw the route the GPS unit doesn't know how to follow those lines on the map.

Vector maps, like say the Garmin topos, most all car nav units, etc, are much smaller in size. And you can click two points and say "go to" and it will construct a route along known roads and sometimes trails. Much more useful for car nav with spoken directions and such. Not so useful for hiking (yet...maybe we'll get a "head for the tall tree with the broken limb" someday...).

Garmins at least let you use custom maps, like overlaying some raster stuff on their vector base maps. I georeference say my local parks' online maps so I can see trails and stuff Garmin doesn't include.

 

[RMAC67]

Not knowing much about apps, etc... I currently use a Garmin montana 650T GPS with AusTopo Maps here in Australia as it's the only GPS that I've come across where I can search the web for track logs and upload them, colour code them and head off and explore the remote area by myself and have some confidence that I at least know that I can get through..... It has great flexibility but the only issue I've got is the screen size and this is where if I couple find a app that did exactly the same as the setup I have now + POI and all the other bells and whistles' I would be a happy person......
What u end up with if it could be used world wide which obviously includes the countries local topo mapping, etc.

BTW- the apps mentioned in previous posts, are they suitable to use here in Australia or are they mainly for the USA ?

 

[shane4x4]

Oh boy do I ever want to put some thought into this...
but next week as I am at work and counting the hours till I can run away for the weekend..

I'm all ears

 

[shane4x4]

Not knowing much about apps, etc... I currently use a Garmin montana 650T GPS with AusTopo Maps here in Australia as it's the only GPS that I've come across where I can search the web for track logs and upload them, colour code them and head off and explore the remote area by myself and have some confidence that I at least know that I can get through..... It has great flexibility but the only issue I've got is the screen size and this is where if I couple find a app that did exactly the same as the setup I have now + POI and all the other bells and whistles' I would be a happy person......
What u end up with if it could be used world wide which obviously includes the countries local topo mapping, etc.

BTW- the apps mentioned in previous posts, are they suitable to use here in Australia or are they mainly for the USA ?

Have you looked at the Hema apps? It seems like they have plenty of POI's and while they're a lil pricey, I thought they may be a good option for Aus.

The stuff I'm talking about would initially be north america focused, but eventually could be expanded

A note on vector maps:
I completely agree that vector is the way of the future, and I like that Gaia offers some vector layers in addition to all the raster layers. Earthmate from DeLorme is all vector and seems fairly useful in my initial testing, they don't have much in the way of POIs though.

Hopefully the holy grail is on the horizon!

 

[Longrange308]

I would really like a "sharing" functionality. Like if I am heading to a specific area, I can see tracks that people have previously driven and explored, if they choose to share it that is. There are a lot of places that I cant find much if any information on, let alone trails. I often have to rely on satellite images to try to find my trails before I plot courses and head out.

 

[1leglance]

So this is what I currently use on my Netbook and why....thus a tablet app would have to cover these bases..

Acer 10in screen netbook...small enough to not encroach on wife space but big enough screen to see

Globalsat 353 USB GPS puck, weatherproof/magnetic puck that can go outside to get best view of the sky, is powered so I don't have to worry about batteris and has a great cold start time.

Franson GPSgate so I can run 2 programs at the same time....and in a minute you will see why I need 2 programs AT LEAST.

AdobePDF with TerraGo Toolbar...for historic GeoPDF as our US gov are idiot who publish cool old maps in the least used format on the planet...I hope this changes or someone comes up with an extension to run these maps in OziExplorer or something. At least I get a blue GPS dot on the historic map so I can reference where I am compared to the handdrawn coolness.

OziExplorer....lets me run the great USGS topo raster maps that have tons of great handwrtten stuff that goes away with most vector maps. Sure it will not autoroute but since I do most of my planning in Google Earth at home then it isn't an issue....plus I have another program for highway stuff and autorouting.
Ozi also works with tons of map formats from around the world and has been used forever by world travelers. Most often if I meet someone outside the USA they either have a Garmin or Ozi and getting their waypoints or tracks is easy.

Delorme Topo 9...this is the autorouter and what I use on the highway to get to dirt...or to get off of dirt to the nearest whatever? Has great search features, plenty of topo info and the 2 zoom windows at the same time is nice.

Mapsource/Nroute...this is something I just started using in the last year....Nroute is an old Garmin program that lays on top of MapSource and turns my netbook into a moving gps tool, so I can use all the great Baja and outside the USA Garmin basemaps...especially community based stuff like Smellybiker.
It also let's me load and unload stuff off the garmin handheld or Nuvi and play with while moving

GPSBabel...let's me convert an info I get from anywhere into something I can use.

I get my data from trip reports, websites, books and other travelers....therefore any program I use has to be able to handle GPX, kml, and other common waypoints/tracks.
I like the historic old maps and cool stuff like USGS topos, along with route planning on vector maps

So looking for an app that can do all that and not cover half the screen with the pop up keyboard (since then I can't see the map itself)

 

[GregSplett]

So this is what I currently use on my Netbook and why....thus a tablet app would have to cover these bases..

Acer 10in screen netbook...small enough to not encroach on wife space but big enough screen to see

Globalsat 353 USB GPS puck, weatherproof/magnetic puck that can go outside to get best view of the sky, is powered so I don't have to worry about batteris and has a great cold start time.

Franson GPSgate so I can run 2 programs at the same time....and in a minute you will see why I need 2 programs AT LEAST.

AdobePDF with TerraGo Toolbar...for historic GeoPDF as our US gov are idiot who publish cool old maps in the least used format on the planet...I hope this changes or someone comes up with an extension to run these maps in OziExplorer or something. At least I get a blue GPS dot on the historic map so I can reference where I am compared to the handdrawn coolness.

OziExplorer....lets me run the great USGS topo raster maps that have tons of great handwrtten stuff that goes away with most vector maps. Sure it will not autoroute but since I do most of my planning in Google Earth at home then it isn't an issue....plus I have another program for highway stuff and autorouting.
Ozi also works with tons of map formats from around the world and has been used forever by world travelers. Most often if I meet someone outside the USA they either have a Garmin or Ozi and getting their waypoints or tracks is easy.

Delorme Topo 9...this is the autorouter and what I use on the highway to get to dirt...or to get off of dirt to the nearest whatever? Has great search features, plenty of topo info and the 2 zoom windows at the same time is nice.

Mapsource/Nroute...this is something I just started using in the last year....Nroute is an old Garmin program that lays on top of MapSource and turns my netbook into a moving gps tool, so I can use all the great Baja and outside the USA Garmin basemaps...especially community based stuff like Smellybiker.
It also let's me load and unload stuff off the garmin handheld or Nuvi and play with while moving

GPSBabel...let's me convert an info I get from anywhere into something I can use.

I get my data from trip reports, websites, books and other travelers....therefore any program I use has to be able to handle GPX, kml, and other common waypoints/tracks.
I like the historic old maps and cool stuff like USGS topos, along with route planning on vector maps

So looking for an app that can do all that and not cover half the screen with the pop up keyboard (since then I can't see the map itself)

You just outlined exactly what I have been researching for a month or so.

It was like finding a magic short cut on my desktop. Thank you!

 

[1leglance]

Somewhere on here I posted my workflow but it will be faster to type it again vs searching

First figure out where you want to go and any references....forums, mag articles, rumors or alien contact

Next fire up Google Earth at home....not MAPS but EARTH

Then do all the searching, planning, dropping waypoints, routing and everything else.
Save as kml file
Drop this into OziExplorer and double check that I have maps for the entire route.
If not then go to datagateway.gov and download by county whatever I am missing for free....very easy process
Export from Ozi to GPX

Drop the kml file into Delorme Topo and make sure it looks good.

Drop the GPX file from Ozi into Garmin Nroute and make sure I am good.

Go here and look for historic maps for whereever I am going
http://viewer.nationalmap.gov/viewer/
Look at them in Adobe PDF viewer with the TerraGo Toolbar installed.

Finally after all that I get in my rig and go to this new fun place, add waypoints and my own track.

The important thing is that each evening in camp before I exit the vehicle is to save my track and waypoints in each program so I have an archive of my travels.

 

[shane4x4]

Thanks for your input Lance, as always
I'll be in touch soon!

Ok...here are my thoughts to your thoughts.

First, I'm looking at solely tablet/smartphone here so there will be some features that are impossible. Others will happen with time and as the features are requested. Also, since 'most' users aren't likely to drop over $10 on an app, we do have to pick our battles.
With that being said...

If the built-in GPS in a tablet doesn't cut it (usually vehicle dependent), there are very nice Bluetooth options that allow you to charge the tablet and use the GPS at the same time.

Right now if there's a GeoPDF I want to use on my device, I fire up Avenza PDF Maps to check it out. It's a quick shortcut to switch to that app from my preferred app. Processing GeoPDF into tiles suitable for a real nav app is excruciatingly slow, so historical maps aren't likely to be included as a layer.

USGS Topo (old school) and USA Topo (new school) are both excellent layers that should be included in any excellent app. The latter isn't ready for primetime yet, but it will be.

Autoroute is possible within apps that ALSO display great layers =)

DeLorme Earthmate is now available to smartphone/tablet users for $29.99/year 1 then $14.99 after that. It's useful but lacks real features. Full review coming soon on The Trail Guy.

Baja & Canada basemaps are also MUST HAVES for any real global exploring app.

GPX & KML import from URLs, DropBox, iTunes, etc are excellent features that should be included as well.

Finally, two other huge things I'm thinking about are useful POI's: Campgrounds, dealers, service centers, fuel stations, mines, historical info, etc. are all awesome ways to enhance features in an app.

Lastly, most USFS districts now have Motor vehicle use maps. An Travel Management layer that includes MVUM, BLM Travel maps, and certain state maps (such as anza borrego) would be a great value-add, IMHO.

For workflow...we use very similar processes =)

Ideally, I want a useful web interface that allows me to see other trips, plan by using their info and info I create (waypoints, tracks, routes), photos, and video. Once my trip is created I'd like to sync it to my device and have the option to download any map info I don't already have.

So I think we're getting really close to dialing in a feature set!