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  Android Map Apps - Comparative Table - Notes

This is: http://www.berklix.com/android/maps_notes.html

by Julian Stacey

See Also: http://www.berklix.com/android/maps.html

• I first looked for a Comparative Table Of Android Map Apps, could not find one, so started my own,
• I welcome corrections & additions, preferably send them in Unix diff -c format.
• I would welcome if this was absorbed as a wikipedia page, to save me the work of maintaining it, & allow others to edit too, but please tell me first so we can arrange a clean hand over & so I don't waste time continuing to maintain in parallel.
• I didn't look at apps that cost money.
• There are more map app on the google [& other too maybe?] app store[s] that I've not looked at yet.
• Shrink font size to view full table width (on Firefox to shrink: Control Minus, & Control Shift Plus); (I've already broken long words & URLs to help minimise column width.)
• Notes on capability columns:

• • Colours

    Green = good, Orange = Medium, Red = bad

  • Off-Line

    Well you dont want to have data coverage (RF reception), + a phone SIM, + pay money for data transfer via phone company, + wait for data to downloade, all just to look at eg Google maps, do you ? Much better to have maps pre downloaded free, over WLAN in advance !

  • Search Address

    function is easier to test on clean addresses, eg avoid testing on many German addresses at least till you get used to how the app works. German addresses are a pain, with Umlauts + optionally ramming some words together without spaces, & optional hyphens with optional trailing spaces.
    • If you have a nice Ascii programmers (or just an English) keyboard, how to even generate a German Umlaut ? Visitors won't even want Umlauts if they can avoid the damn things !
    • Does each app expect city name of Munich or Muenchen or München ? or will it take several or all 3 ? Better test with a clean Ascii city name like Aachen !
    • Does it want Schwanthalerhoehe all rammed together ? or Schwan- thaler- hoehe ? Does that hoehe need to be höhe ?
    • Will it be SomeLongAllee or SomeLong Allee ?
    • In German, Grafing, PLZ=85567 Grafing Which will it appear to accept for search, but perhaps fail to find on some (which?) of:

      Schwarz Bäck Str
      Schwarz Baeck Str
      Schwarz- Bäck- Str
      Schwarz- Baeck- Str
      Schwarz-Bäck Str
      Schwarz-Bäck-Str
      Schwarz-Baeck Str
      Schwarz-Baeck-Str
      SchwarzBäck Str
      SchwarzBäck- Str
      SchwarzBäck-Str
      SchwarzBaeck Str
      SchwarzBaeck- Str
      SchwarzBaeck-Str
      Schwarzbäck Str
      Schwarzbäck- Str
      Schwarzbäck-str
      Schwarzbäckstr
      Schwarzbaeck Str
      Schwarzbaeckstr
      

  • Adverts Useful !

    Map Loading Offers Advert ? If Yes, Can Be Useful as the browser it forks can be diverted to look at other non advert pages while downloading.
    (Also: Sometimes one can use white tab on left of Samsung Galaxy Note 3 (no idea if and what that might be on more generic Androids) to pull up a firefox while map app continues downloading.

  • Map Format

    - All these apps keep their own data, Maybe some might be able to share later via a symbolic link, (a lot come from same source of OSM = OpenStreetMap) ?

  • Sizes

    As a measure for comparison of different apps' map sizes, the size of a map of England is also listed in Meg. (Not size of UK or GB), eg excluding Scotland Wales Northern Ireland. That's perhaps not a particularly good measure, of efficiency as some maps may have more detail than others, & eg Mapdroyd's map for UK is hardly bigger than for England, (Maybe less detailed). Some apps split some countries (eg German France UK Italy) into sub sets, Maybe a medium sized country such as Portugal might be better ?

• https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.staircase3.opensignal
• gpswandern.de
• gps- tour.info