wiiiim

heya!
I was digging aroundon the internet searching for good offline gps navigation for long distance tours in remote country, and came across this neat app for android devices called Mapdroyd. I've only just downloaded it, but i thought it looks really promising! Its a small app, you select the maps you want to download from a list (most if not all countries), and youre good to go. Map downloads are really small, and most of all the whole thing is free!
Anyway, I've yet to test its accuracy, I bet there are many roads missing, the granularity is not like a gps for a car, but still! It looks like a really neat companion for those riding world tours, in combination with paper maps. It got me excited, anyone else know of similar applications?
I have navigon too, but the coverage is really limited and bloated with uneccesary details (and its expensive..)

Gotte

I had an old version of map driod, and the problem I found was you had to download the detail maps for an area, not just the country or region. this got a bit of a pain, as you had to manually run the route you wanted to download the map. Be interested to know if things have changed, though, as it could make finding ourselves when lost a lot easier.
That's all I'd use it for, though, as I quite like using normal maps and trying to work it out on the ground.

fairymuff

I've got Mapdroyd, and it's alright, but I've not used it much. There's a companion Navigation app called Navdroyd, which at $6.55 is a poor man's SatNav. Both apps use 'openmaps' which are publicly available maps that get annotated with POI info by local users. As said, don't expect the accuracy and 'up-to-dateness' of proper SatNav, but at the price (or lack thereof) it's pretty nifty.

Bacciagalupe

FWIW I've found that GPS apps tend to chew up smartphone batteries pretty quickly. I don't know if you'd make it a full day of touring without supplemental power.

IMO if you want GPS on tour, you're much better off with a bike-specific GPS like the Garmin Edge series, or a Forerunner. Keep the smartphone for communication and, if necessary, a backup map.

wiiiim

im mostly intersted in using this in combination with paper maps, you could power on your device just once a day to seeif youre still on the right track, say in Morocco where road names can be in Arabic, i wouldnt feel safe relying soly on a gps device. Whats the differnce between mapdroyd and navdroyd? Worth the upgrade?

fairymuff

Mapdroyd just has the maps (at least the version I have). Navdroid allows you to plot a course from location A to B, giving you step by step directions (either walking/cycling/by car). I've not actually used it, I purchased it from balance left on a old sim. But, for under $7 it's nice to know it's there should you get lost.

Aushiker

Thanks for the heads-up. Downloading it now to have a play. It looks like in my case that I can download a map for the whole state (Western Australia) which is not too bad.

Andrew