Offline maps
 

Are there any good offline maps apps for Europe and North America?

For what sort of device/operating system? TomTom (iPhone) and CoPilot (Android) are good for smartphones.

For Android you can download "Mapdroyd" from Market for free. It is not as nice as Google maps but allows you to download entire countries in advance for use with no data service.

For the more adventurous Android user there is an unauthorized hacked version of Google maps that has map caching for offline use as well as enabling Navigation in many countries that Google does not support. Unauthorized and not Google approved so it is not in Market. You can read about it and download the .apk herehttp://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=630887

If you are not using Android, I can't help you ;)

I recently evaluated several offline mapping tools for android, including MayDryoid.

My favorite by far is OsmAnd. I cached several cities I'll be visiting in October without a data connection.

Any suggestions for Windows Mobile?

Microsoft Streets and Trips and/or MapPoint used to have a WinMo version. They may still, I don't know. Might be worth checking into.

The nice thing was that you could build custom maps on the desktop app and then sync them over to the device.

iPad
 

Ones I have tried for iPad include National Geographic World Atlas and the four ScenicMag apps for the US. None are all that good. National Geographics gives you some detail for every country but needs a WiFi connection to give you really good detail (via Bing). The ScenicMap apps are good but very slow usually. I have tried tracking our progress while flying commercial and got it to work OK once but it is far from consistant and not the best UI. They need work. I also have TomTom and Navigon on my iPad but they are not all that easy to use as purely maps. I also have a Garmin nuvi and that works OK even when flying commercial but still not real user friendly as purely a map.

There is definitely a need for great off-line maps.

Any suggestion for Windows PC platform?

GMAP catcher

http://code.google.com/p/gmapcatcher/

Microsoft Streets and Trips is the Windows PC application; if you have a Windows Mobile device it will install that for free as well. I've been using MS S&T practically every day for years and have been very satisfied with it. Hotel brands get out of date, but for all other purposes it's a great tool. The European version is MS Autoroute.

Thanks for the link. Looks interesting.
On the linked page, I see 4 downloads (2 mapcatcher; 2 GMapCatcher). Do you need to download all 4 or simply GMapCatcher-0.7.5.0.exe?

For the IPhone, I use OffMaps. You can pre-download city maps and use it with conjunction with GPS. It's changed the way I travel!

Thank you all! will give it a try :)

This is where Ovi Maps for Nokia phones really excels.

Offline maps, turn by turn navigation, etc. For free.

Any updates on this thread? I'm running winmo 6.5, and it looks like Mapcatcher's website has Google maps crossed out now. Did they stop support for Google maps?

If you have an iPhone, you can use the GPS navigation apps TomTom or Navigon to fill in if you can't use the maps app. Both apps are large in size, but they include all of the maps for whatever region/area you paid for.

I would love a decent app for Android too. I've tried mapdroyd - the maps are pretty low resolution, and the gps tracking is very poor. I've downloaded locus free, and the UI is so bad (or I am so stupid -- either are quite possible) that I have no idea how to use it.

My solution is that with google maps, one can load an entire city in the cache when online. I just go to city of choice, zoom in to highest resolution all the areas I'm interested in, and then use the map offline. It can get a bit buggy, and requires switching phone off/on, but otherwise fine. No directions, however. Of course, the major limitation is that this works for only one city at a time.

tb

there is a cache limit (dont know the size) and it will start deleting the oldest tile loaded once you go over

if you are on ios jailbroken, it then is unlimited by installing the app above, then you can get multiple cities. there may be an app for android similar i dont know. i doubt you'll be able to fit everything into the limited cache even just 1 city depending on how much you detail you load/how big the city is

I think the cache limit on Android for Google maps is fairly large, I've been able to cache map data for the whole of Belgium (not the largest country, but still) on my phone (HTC Desire running insertcoin 2.3.3 ROM)

I've tried to use Google maps on my phone (HTC Touch Pro 2 with WinMo 6.5) by downloading the map when I have wifi, then viewing it later without internet. The problem is that after about 10 seconds, the app starts searching for an internet signal, and when it doesn't find one, an error message pops up, (blocking my cached map), which forces me to either change my internet/wifi settings, or exit the program. Does anyone else have this problem?

No such problem on the iphone. If its cached it will display when offline if not it will just show empty tiles. If the iphone is jailbroken try Maps Enhancer.

Doesn't quite help anyone in the short-term, but:
http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/08/g...armin-and-tom/

man i seen that cant wait. too bad my only planned trip starts next week :td:

best map apps for Android: rmaps & Locus Pro

Both can use SQLite databases for offline map caching.

if you use the Mobile Atlas Creator software http://mobac.sourceforge.net/
you can use it download Google Maps files into an offline SQLite Database.

Unfortunately Google Maps have threatened these software developers with legal action for allowing people to "steal" their maps so Google Maps support has now been removed in said software. However if you use v1.8 you are still good to go!!

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=763575