OSMAND navigation

[Skybird]

Maybe I overestimate the demand for this :) , but I know OSMAND since two years and consider it to be an extremely potent, capable navigation app for Android devices (teblets, smartphones etc). However I find learning the interface sometikes difficult, since I find the design to be somewhat nti-ergonomic, anti-intuitive - perosnally, i struggle with memorising it.

This guy however has done a wonderful serious of tutorial videos, and by the ones I have already watched by now, I definitely recommend to use them. They are tremendously helpful, very well done and presented and of great explanatory value. There are options in thsi fantastic app that I so far did not even knew of.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCITh0WApc_L25-d7TBH4Wpw

I use to have a solid map pool as offline database on my devices. That are the two greta advantages of OSMAND over Google Maps: Google Maps demands you to be online even if you use GPS only, so that they can extract the data of your activities, while OSMAND can be run like a conventional navigation device in offline mode, depending only on GPS; and second the available maps are classes and lightyears better than the very old and undetailed maps used by Google, which often lack details as well.

OSMAND is a top app - you just need to learn the sometimes anti-intuitive interface a bit. If you need navi software a lot and so far base on Google Maps only, give it a try. You might find your love for OSMAND.

[Commander Wallace]

Thanks for the info and steer in. :Kaleun_Thumbs_Up:

[Skybird]

;)

Keep in mind however that the maps depend on open source maps. That means the more people in a region live, the more mappers there are, the better the maps will be, where as isolated places with few people only may lack details. But the last video shows how you could load any other map source into the app and then use detailed maps - paper charts for example - for these abandoned areas. Living in Germany however I know no other map, printed or digital, that includes so rich detail like the open source maps available for it. That includes trekking maps scale 1:12500.

The big advanatge is that OSMAND is completely independent from online connectivity, all maps can be saved for offline use. You could even load and save Google Maps as a fall back option, I think.