MapDroyd: Fantastic Mapping Application!

[Inger]

MapDroyd is a phenomenal application and a must have for anyone who is travelling internationally.

First of all, what is MapDroyd? Well, MapDroyd is a mapping program which will display a map of your chosen location be it a country, state, city or neighbourhood. If you choose it can then also display your location on the map by utilizing your phone's GPS. After it has found your location, if you move it will track your location as you travel.

Now, what is the differences between MapDroyd and a GPS navigation program. Well, MapDroyd is a much more basic program compared to a GPS navigation program like Google Maps or a Garmin or a TomTom. Programs like Google Maps allow you to search POIs around your location or calculate routes between two different positions. MapDroyd does NOT support either of those, it is simply a mapping program that will also display your location on the map.

So you might be thinking, why would I use something like this over a traditional GPS navigation program or even the pre-installed Google Maps? Well here is one of the biggest advantages of MapDroyd, it is completely offline. While you are browsing the maps or finding your location, MapDroyd only uses your phones GPS, it requires absolutely no data. This is a huge benefit when using a GPS internationally as data roaming outside of the country is incredibly expensive. It will not give a route, but you can see where you are on the map and where your destination is and just follow along from there. If you absolutely want an offline Navigation program then I recommend TravelDroyd, made by the same guys who made MapDroyd and also of high quality, but thats a seperate review.

The map selection; one of MapDroyd's biggest advantages is the map selection, it has maps for the ENTIRE world! MapDroyd utilizes maps from OpenStreetMap, a free map of the world that anyone and everyone can edit and improve. Think of OpenStreetMap as a map version of wikipedia, anyone can improve it but there are those who monitor it for vandalism. I have used maps from all over Canada, the Northern United States and on a recent trip to Japan and have not found any major inaccuracies or ommissions.

You can go to http://www.openstreetmap.org/ to view the entire map database and browse to see if your preferred location is accurate and detailed.

What the maps look like on an Android device (taken from the developers homepage):

The maps are clear and easy to read. Street names, train lines and major points of interest are all shown on the maps. They can be zoomed in all the way to a scale of 1:390 or 10 meters (32.8 feet). Personally I've found the best viewing option is 1:6200 or 200 meters (656 feet) but thats really just preference. For zooming, MapDroyd supports pinch to zoom as well as touch buttons in the bottom corners of the screen.

When using a map, the maps can be fully rotated manually or you can toggle the map to auto rotate according to compass direction. A compass is always displayed in the top right corner of the map and it rotates to correspond to the correct directions. Each map can also be dragged in any direction you wish. The maps load instantly, and theres no delay as a new section of map appears on the screen.

So what about saving and loading this vast selection of maps. Well MapDroyd saves all its maps to your SD card so there is no need to worry about your phone's internal memory being used up. Also, when downloading maps you can choose a specific location to download; for example, if you're travelling just to New York State when then you can download a map just for the state of New York. It is not necessary to download a map of all of the US. All maps are pre-downloaded prior to use at a time of your convience. You can choose to download over wifi or data.

Download page:

Overall MapDroyd is an excellent program, it does not overall the robustness of something like Google Maps but being 100% free and completely offline make it a very appealing choice for anyone travelling internationally.

Highlights:

- 100% free

- Completely offline (maps are pre-downloaded prior to use via wifi or data)

- Ability to choose exactly what map or area you want to download

- Maps are saved to SD card

- Maps of the entire world provided by OpenStreetMap

- Tracking of user via GPS and shown on map

- Pinch to zoom

 

[simport]

hello! thanks for the article... now i am looking for your TRAVELDROYD article, but do not see it? and while TRAVELDROYD seems to be free, i think downloading every city in a country must end up to be WAY more expensive than normal GPS maps, no???

 

[mariu$]

im also interested in traveldroyd but only if its free

 

[athegn]

Just loaded Mapdroyd on my HTC Desire.

Good as far as it goes but why does it not load all features from OpenStreetMap.

On my Desire, for one small town, is shown bus stops and banks but not pubs, police stations and toilets. The last one particularly useful.

Does anyone know why these features are missing?

 

[Conan USMC]

Is there a way to use this as a live wallpaper?

 

[OFI]

Is there a way to use this as a live wallpaper?

Not a great deal of help but I know there is a live wallpaper out there which can use the same source of maps.

 

[ewingr]

Disappeared from the Market.

 

[Deleted User]

Not on the market .... why is the post still showing?????????

 

[ewingr]

Not sure I understand what you mean. Are you saying "Why is this thread still showing that app?". If that's the case, I presume because the OP isn't updating it.

Threads don't just go away.

 

[SoCADesertRat]

It is in the Market today. Just downloaded it.

 

[ewingr]

It is in the Market today. Just downloaded it.

You know, I think I was likely spelling it wrong: Mapdroid, instead of MapDroyd.

 

[pandabear]

can you add your own maps, I am thinking marine charts.

 

[pWndYke]

Very nice review 5/5.

 

[Fatwaz]

i'm off to tenerife in a few days,with this app can i download the street maps for where im staying to use offline when im out and about there?

 

[(G)]

They keep saying you can download maps with your PC, but I can't find the way to do that.

Anyone?

 

[sixfootsix]

any idea why the maps aren't showing up on my Droid Incredible? I download the whole 130mb file but the maps are blank...just all grey...no streets or anything...

 

[larrycl]

I found this app nearly useless as there is no search whatsoever, not even for cities. Heck, my paper maps have a legend where you can see what quadrant a city is in. What are you supposed to use Mapdroyd if you don't know where in the state/province/country a city is located?

 

[AndyOpie150]

This is in response to larrycl's post. I just downloaded MapDroyd and it does every thing the review in the original post in this thread say's and nothing else. Maybe you could read the review's BEFORE posting a negative comment based on lack of knowledge, that way you don't end up sticking your foot(or in your case the whole shoe store)in your mouth. There's a saying that goes: it is wiser to keep thy mouth shut and be thought a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt.

 

[larrycl]

Well, this is in response to AndyOpie150's post. I really don't understand where your hostility is coming from, and there is no need to make derogatory comments about other posters whom you happen to disagree with (e.g, saying I stuck my whole foot in my mouth, I'm a fool, etc)

For the record, I did indeed read the entire review & I agree with it factually: It does everything the OP says it does. However, the OP only wrote about the "Pros" and didn't write about any "Cons". My comment pointed out one of the major cons.

Putting this another way, I disagree with the OP's conclusion that this is a great app. Why do I disagree? Because the app has no search capability. I think it's fair to point this out because search is an extremely important feature.

The OP wrote it will not give a route, but you can see where you are on the map and where your destination is and just follow along from there.. The OP also wrote it is a very appealing choice for anyone travelling internationally. My question is: how do you find your destination with mapdroyd if you've downloaded an entire country? Small cities don't show up until you've zoomed in to greater magnification levels, so if you don't know exactly where the city in question is location, you need to start sliding all over the map hunting for it.

For the record, I've been using GPS & mobile mapping apps quite extensively over the last 7-8 years on many different platforms (Pocket PC, Windows Mobile, Palm, Blackberry, and Android) so I think I have enough background and experience to know when a feature is useful & important.

Also for the record, just recently I had occasion to try Mapdroyd out when traveling internationally where I did not have a data connection. The lack of search was painful. As I said in my prior post, you get this feature on paper maps, so it's something I certainly would expect on ANY electronic map.

Again, this is my opinion based on how I use this mapping application. I see no need for your inappropriate taunting and name calling.

 

[Budapest]

Hi fellows,

I am going to make a whole summer bicycle tour in Europe. Please recommend me offline maps which fulfill the most of my requirements:
1. contain preferably every road suitable for bicycle
2. contain places of interest
3. contain information on relief, preferably a contour-map
4. contain positions of camping sites
5. contain railways and stations
6. contain probably locations of shops
7. preferably whole Europe or countries of western and central Europe
I am going to use it offline on Samsung Galaxy Ace (Android 2.2) on a 32 GB micro SD card.

Great thanks in advance if you can help me! Bye!

 

[g4jnw]

Have downloaded mapdroyd (for using with shore fishing venues) and all i get when i click on mapdroyd is a world map that when i magnify has no details on.
Cant find a map manager within the program, have deleted it once and downloaded again but its the same.
It looks an ideal program but it doesn't even fire up the gps even though i have turned on gps manually.
I have tried another program called osmand which is very basic but it fires up the gps.

Any ideas guys, am new to the forum

 

[chinefoo]

i allso have nothing but a gray continental world map void of any thing downloaded map for my state looked online found nothing that would allow a view of a street much less geography, or land marks, ill mess with it a bit but so far im a bit bummed

 

[hooly]

i'm having the same problems as some of the others: installed the app, downloaded the mapfiles via pc (downloading straight to my phone would eat my monthly quota), moved the map files over to my droid per instructions.

when i fire up MapDroyd it shows a pop-up about scanning the map files, seems to see them all and verify them but in the app all i get is grey, no maps of any kind, world view or otherwise. can't find documentation, can't get a response from support. sounded great but so far no joy. and that bit about no search (even of i did have the maps showing) ..

what is the problem here? far more complex apps on the droid market work better and have far, FAR better support and documentation, and all that from a single developer or two. MapDroyd strikes me as a work-in-progress (as in pre-beta) and not ready for prime time yet.

 

[nikolaforum]

Hi,

This in nice application. I use it

 

[saxguyty]

i don't like mapdroid very much, as mentioned in one post in this thread, THERE IS NO SEARCH FEATURE

the streets seem to be drawn only if you are closely zoomed in, so it is difficult to read any street names

I prefer: rmaps

you can use Mobile Atlas Creator (use older version 1.8) to cache tiles from many map sources online (google, microsoft, OSM, many more) which are combined into an sqlite atlas file that is read by rmaps for offline use

rmaps has ability to search for strings withing the maps, to find streets and locations

other options are: gvSIG Mini (possible to cache maps for offline use for the desktop version, doesn't seem to be available for android gvSIG mini version), and also Maverick

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