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What I like (and dislike) about Maps.me


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#1 Old Crow

Old Crow

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Posted 15 May 2022 - 09:58 PM

I mentioned Gaia GPS in a recent post and Buckland's reply included his endorsement of Maps.me. I too am a fan of Maps.me and had been considering posting something about it. Buckland's comment prompts me to go ahead with that. Hopefully this makes sense to those who've not used it.

 

First, I should note that I have seven or eight map applications on my iPad. I use them for various purposes and often have more than one running at a time. But the one I always have running is Maps.me.

 

Likes:

 

1. Maps.me is an offline map application for iOS and Android.  Once you load up the maps, you don't need a cell connection.  The GPS chip in your device (or a separate GPS receiver if yours doesn't have one) calculates your position and the app displays it as an arrowhead on the digital map. And surprisingly, Maps.me is both free and does not have advertising.

 

2. I have a limited data plan on my iPad.  If I heavily use other iOS map applications, I use more data.  Apple Maps and Google Maps can get pretty useless once you get away from civilization and Maps.me fills that gap. And it does that without using my data. 

 

3. Road labels. For me, it has a good method of displaying road labels (i.e. names).  Some apps only show road names after zooming way in or force you to follow the road too far to see its name.  I have the iPad mini mounted next to my steering wheel and when I have a turn coming up I can glance over and see the road with its name on it, the shape of the turn, and the arrow representing us approaching the turn. And Maps.me puts the name in multiple places along the road.  I can pan and zoom and road names don't just disappear at the next zoom-out level.  Geezer tip:  Go into Settings and turn on the 'Increase font size on the map' switch.  That made a big difference for me.

 

4. Road names in more areas.  There are roads without names, of course, but overall Maps.me has been surprisingly good at having road names there given you can load up such a wide geographic area to carry around on your phone or tablet. 

 

5.  Loading maps by state/province.  Before I leave, I load up the maps I think I'll need for the entire multi-state trip and for neighboring states I might wander into. There are multiple maps for most states and provinces.  I currently have 5 of the 56 maps of Canada (323 MB) and 98 of the 154 maps of the US (5.4 GB) because of recent trips.  If you arrive into an area you forgot to download and have cell signal, the app will prompt you to download the map for that area. If you don't have cell service at that point, you're out of luck so it's better to load up surrounding states when you have the chance.

 

6. Keeping maps updated is easy.  When you open the My Maps section, there's a message showing there are map updates available and there's an 'Update All' button. I only do that when I have a wifi connection.  I did that while writing this post and it took about 20 minutes to complete. If you prefer, you can drill down to states/provinces or individual maps to only update those. The maps are based on Open Street Maps and update frequently but of course many of those changes are small. Updates are also free.

 

7. Making Waypoints is easy.  I sometimes make a quick waypoint press, just to see distance to it or to mark it.  Press and hold on the screen for a blue circle to appear.  A box also appears, showing its GPS position (in Decimal Degrees) and the as-the-crow-flies distance to it. The box also gives you the option to route to it, route from it, save it, or share it.   We recently used it to mark key intersections in a confusing set of intersecting roads and to mark potential campsites we might have to retreat to (if we couldn't find anything better).

 

8. It has a Travel-direction-Up capability.  When your position arrow is off the map, there's an open-center arrow below the zoom-in/out buttons.  Press once to rapidly pan to your location.  That turns the arrowhead all blue and you'll see your position on a map with north at the top.  Press that again and it turns into an arrowhead with vertical lines.  The map has now re-oriented to your direction of travel and the map will rotate under your position arrow as you drive.  If you leave it on travel-direction-up, the map won't go into screen-save.  If on north-up and your position arrow goes off the screen, it will eventually go into screen-save.

 

9.  It's possible to import waypoints you made in another map application.  If that app has the ability to export a KML file, you can import to Maps.me simply by sending yourself an email with the KML file attached and clicking on Maps.me when you open the attachment.  I've played a bit with Google's My Maps and was able to use the instructions here to import those waypoints into my Maps.me app.

 

Dislikes:

 

1. There is one weird thing about Maps.me.  For some reason one of the first things you see as you zoom in from a way-out view is airports, including every little grass strip in the area.  The font is too large.  I'd love to have an option to turn off airport names and just leave an icon there so I could click on it if I needed to know the name.

 

2. It doesn't have a satellite-view layer. A satellite photograph can show you things a terrain or road map doesn't. 

 

3. It doesn't have much terrain info.  You can click on a terrain layer to get some contours overlaid on the map but it's not very good.

 

4. The white-roads-on-gray-background presentation for non-interstate roads can be hard to see in bright light and sunglasses.  It would be nice to have an option to choose other background/road colors for better visibility in challenging conditions.

 

5.  Its turn-by-turn routing isn't sophisticated.  The voice is very robotic.  I've occasionally had difficulty finding a named origin or destination with the search window.  If that happens, I place a waypoint and then use the Route-to selection to get to it.  Or I switch to Apple Maps or Google Maps (if I have cell signal).

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Edited by Old Crow, 16 May 2022 - 04:02 PM.

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