What's the best app for finding and navigating hiking trails?
Sent from my DROIDX using XDA App
Search the market for everytrail. A lot of trails posted but of course could always depend on your area. Its pretty nice because it can just pull your location and show the nearest hikes to you.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
You might also look into mapping programs that will let you load arbitrary maps into the phone, such as scanned trail maps or topo maps. None of the options are particularly quick to set up, as you'll have to get maps into them.
If OSM has good enough maps, you could use something that'll cache offline maps of it. Often there are decent trail maps there, although I honestly don't see how people have the time to create them given the tools OSM gives.... Anywho.
Backcountry Navigator, Maverick and Orux are a few I found googling.
BackCountry Navigator is damn nice, I've been playing with it all day.. You can pre-cache maps from a bunch of different sources and it has a specific offline mode to use the maps later, all very easy to do. I have a question out to them about calibrating and importing a custom map, something that I'm not seeing in the program but maybe I'm overlooking it.. Like there's an area where I mountain bike and the topo maps are REALLY hard to read the trails as they seem to blend right in with the contour lines, but I have several great high level trail maps that I'd love to be able to use.
OruxMaps is the most useful up to date. The essential feature is offline navigation, i.e. maps can be seen when there is no cell tower in sight. It is essential in the mountains (too high) in the forest (too far) and in high sea. Additionally one can switch the cell receiver completely off that gives more juice to GPS and actual navigation without recharge.
The tracks can be uploaded to pop track sites including google maps. The only deficiencies I know of: UI requires some learning, stats charts can't be exported (particularly important for high profiles)
On my Windows CE PND, I use oziexplorer.
Using Mobile atlas creator I can use Google or OSM maps, and at the same time it has features like "as the crow flies navigation" to a waypoint, or load upto 5gpx tracks and show on screen, and navigate by gpx track.
It also writes tracks, with a new track for every day(useful over multi day trips).
I was looking at similar android apps.
I came across the following
1. Locus
This is the most popular, but gpx writing etc., has just been added, and is basic
2. Trekbuddy - Very old app, I am not sure if any current dev is going on
3. Big Planet tracks - Looks very promising, and feature set advertises "waypoint navigation etc,m'
4. Oruxmaps - Again very popular, can load gpx track
All the above maps do not split tracks by day.
I also found some quirks. For example in oruxmaps, there is no way of telling whether its writing a track or not. the button does not change shape on pressing play pause etc.,
All the above are great apps, but from an offroad navigation standpoint, I am not aware which is the best.
Of course there are paid apps like Maverick etc., but currently I am looking only at free apps.
Oziexplorer for android is under alpha stage, and many features are missing, but since I have already purchased a license long time back, I presume, I should be able to use it once it comes(nobody knows when), if the licensing terms are same.
What do you guys suggest? Any offroad navigators here?
any other apps which I may have missed?
thank u very much
Have you tried Brut Maps?
Brut maps are good for offline mapping. For this purpose orux/locus etc., all are excellent solutions. I am looking for a good off road gpx and navigation system. similar to oziexplorer. All the apps I mentioned are somewhat capable of what I need, but not every feature is available.
I think the Big Planet tracks is the most promising, since source is open, and with more developers joining in, things can get better!
I'm on the same hunt, a good off road gps navigator. I go off road a lot (have jeep, will travel) and the trails i go on do not exist on conventional maps. they are on topo maps as dotted lines or "jeep trails". I used to use GPS Tuner when i was on windows mobile. Loved that program. best thing out there in terms of off road navigation. hopefully they'll port it to android soon.
I'm currently trying Maverick, OruxMap, and Gaia GPS to see how they compare.
Maverick seems to be the best so far. Easy to learn and use. And has a lot of map options. Plus with the newest version they finally allow custom mapping, which means you can use a program like MapMaker to create a downloaded map with your choice of a source. I also like its interface and how it responds. Also love the one click ablity to drop a waypoint.
OruxMap seems like a good program, but it gets on my nerves a bit when you can not search around on the map, by dragging it, without it doing that "distance to target" crap. My other complaint about it is that it seems you can't just load a bunch of waypoints in without a track. wtf? hopefully i'm just missing something, but so far i can not load my already existing kml file (and yes, tried as gpx as well) full of waypoint markers without a track in progress or from the past. I do not like that. When I go off roading, i would like to load the markers, and have it track where i go. mainly because my "markers" are more like virtual notes to me on forks in the trail and what each one does. plus some of my markers are POI along the trail, like a nice rock climb or deep mud bogg, and I'd like to be able to just click that and have it point me in the direction of it without having to already be on my way.
Gaia GPS is nice and simple. nothing really fancy about it, except the price you pay for such a simple app. It is great if you want access to the old topo maps that it seems no other gps program can get without importing them via MapMaker. Its very easy to use, simple to follow and does its main job perfectly. show where you are ontop of topo maps. this is good for someone like me that wants to see where the old jeep trails are because like i said earlier, seems no mapping company marks these anymore.
And I've tried testing these all as best as i can. Right now I'm grounded to roads only due to the fact my off road ability is shot due to a bad transfer case. but hopefully i'll be able to do a true middle of no where, no cell service, off road test off these apps and any others i can remember to install before leaving the network.
But right now, if i had to pay for one, it'd be Maverick.
I am finding androzic quite nice too. Currently trying orux and androzic, will finalize about one of them
tsk1979 said:
I am finding androzic quite nice too. Currently trying orux and androzic, will finalize about one of them
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I on a similar hunt - how did u get on?
Androzic is the way to go!
Oruxmap is almost there, but Androzic is totally Oziexplorer like. And guess what, Oziexplorer truly rocks.
I think orux maps would be close if it auto saved waypoints you created manually, and did not have so much confusing screen clutter.
I love androzic for the "look ahead feature", where I can look ahead a set percentage towards the direction I am travelling.
If you do try androzic, do not forget to download img2ozf from the project page(version 2) as newer version of img2ozf from oziexplorer website will create ozfx3 format maps from mobile atlas downloaded maps, which is not supported by androzic.
Awesome!
Thank you!!
I too have GPS units that I get in for myself & friends and we all go 4x4ing deep in the aussie bush.
Since the tablets have come along way I have been thinking about trying one with off-roading to compare to our current GPS units. However, if I can get a good tablet with GPS, and GPS software that I can port my 6gig worth of oziexplorer maps... I am set!!
I am going to look in to Androzic asap - currently I have masses of CD's with rooftops maps & that is the main thing I want on the droid tablets!
Thanks again for this thread!!
Guys, no question...
I mean it seriously. Menion (the dev of Locus) spends several hours a day in making Locus the best offline map app ever. If you have some suggestions or missing features, why don't you put it on his wishlist?
I looked at locus, but as things currently stand, oruxmaps has kind of come out on top for me.
It can write tracks, read tracks, navigate as a crow flies to a waypoint, or navigate a track.
Now I need to ask the devs to work on the trip computers.
For example, multiple odometers, with individual reset etc.,
I'm using Google Maps to see traffic during my commute, NYC Metro area. Anyone compare traffic with Inrix, Waze or one of the other apps? I searched google and found information on the apps, but nothing that compared them for accuracy or timeliness. Even the TomTom or Navigon don't seem to have any comparisons on traffic. I'm looking for an app that provide up to date information, not historical.
I find Google could be hit or miss sometimes. Its a lot better than in past years.
Hi, for all my movements I'm using Waze - honestly I'm very pleased with it regarding updates on traffic, deadlines etc
I paid the $10 for CoPilot. Almost no data usage since the maps are on the device.
nice man, ty!
BACK.HOME can be found on Google Play!
BACK.HOME is an easy, GPS based application with whose help one can relocate a stored GPS location through displaying direction- and distance-information. The app does not use a internet or Wifi connection, it uses exclusively the Smartphone's internal Global-Positioning-System (GPS). To ease the use of this application neither road-maps nor satellite images are used for guidance. Everywhere on earth where a GPS signal is available, the stored location can be relocated with an estimated accuracy of 15m.
This application is manifold! You can relocate your place of departure for almost any kind activities like hiking, boating, fishing, geo-caching, camping, sailing, mountain-biking, no matter where your outdoor activity takes place. Another example of application could be finding back to a train station in a foreign city or finding the anchorage ground of you boat in foreign harbor. Also finding your parked car on an large outdoor parkingspace. Wherever you need to find the way back to an previously visited location, BACK.HOME helps you the easy way.
Hey XDA'ers - I recently drove an awful trip from Connecticut the South Carolina last weekend, and I have to go back tomorrow. What I used on the way down was Google Maps/Navigation on my phone, and Waze on my tablet. My experience:
Google maps didn't route me around a ton of various traffic jams.
Twice it asked if I wanted to select a better route, which I chose, and both times it landed me in very heavy traffic that HAD to be worse than orginal route. It asked me a 3rd time, I declined, and still landed in traffic.
Google maps appears to have no route avoidance - i.e. avoid next 5 miles, or avoid this highway.
I primarily used Waze for traffic and cop notification, Waze seemed to work well for that purpose .I didn't turn on a route in Waze until almost at my destination. I heard it's navigation can take you too much off main roads though.
Google maps did seem to reflect traffic jams in red on the map, but did nothing to get me around them.
I say all this with the understanding that sometimes there are no good alternative routes around traffic, accidents, etc.
I'd be willing to pay good money for a GPS app that works well, and has good route avoidance features. I should note that I've paid for CoPilot which is supposed to do avoidance, and I've had and used for some time, but they updated their interface and I can't figure out how to do route avoidance anymore. Any guidance on CoPilot route avoidance, or another solid GPS app, would be SO very much appreciated.
Thanks a ton in advance for any feedback!!!!