Forum: General Topics

Hello,

First of all, congrats for the great job. I have thoroughly tested each and every gps software out there, you name it. MGMaps, MapNav, AmazeGps, NaviTime, TrekBuddy, Nav4All, MobiTrack, MobileMap2, Mario Advisor, FreeMap, RoadMap, HyCon, WeTravel, 8Motions, J2meMap, Navizon, Nutiteq, PocketStreets, Mologogo, Google Maps, VGPS and others I can't even remember.

I bought a 3-year subscription of Wayfinder. It has the best vector rendering I've seen, but its functionality is pretty basic and right now it does not work with my W760, due to a firmware bug. So, I've been trying to find a navigation replacement.

TMJ is by far the most complete software in terms of functionality and its design is also one of the best. So, what do I miss?

1) For me it would be imperative to have map auto-rotation. I just can't live with driving forward and looking at a down arrow. It looks like you have that with the vector maps, which I didn't have a chance to test, since I'm not a donator.
2) The other desirable thing is offline maps. I'm have a regular data plan but my phone operator keeps going offline with their 3G crap. And I noticed that you don't have offline vector maps. So, raster works offline but doesn't rotate. Vector rotates but online only.
3) Getting directions online. It may sound a paradox, wanting offline maps and online routing, but in fact, your software does about anything. So I could use the regular way to download routes and if I get off track I can have a reroute on the go.

I'm a developer and have added the rotation functionality to MGMaps. A pretty basic one, in 90-degree steps only but after all that I found out MGMaps misses other important things and taking a look at your app who would ever want to stick with MGMaps?

Well, for item number 1, I think I could help, but your software is not open source. Item 2 would depend on you delivering vector map files (which wouldn't be necessary if there is a workaround for item 1). And item 3 I think would not be so hard to implement. Just a form, with a configurable url and 4 variables with current lat/lon, destination lat/lon, source address, destination address. And also a parser for kml, gpx, ozi or anything of those things. I mean, the user could set it up to get routes from any online service he/she wants. I have also added the "reroute" capability to MGMaps, which is simply a button that will make the last search again.

I know GPS has so many applications and driving a car with directions is not the only one. Just think that there are many people looking for something like this and it also looks like this is the only thing TMJ is not "perfect".

Anyway, thanks for all your effort and congrats again. Even if those 3 items are not viable for you, I'll still recommend your app as the best one for complete offline use.

" I guess to do the 90-degree rotations you used the drawRegion() function? "
Yes. drawRegion with Sprite.TRANS_ROT.

" One thing to point out though is that the data is from OpenStreetMap, so coverage of your own area may not be quite so complete "
That's one more reason for me to have raster. OSM does not really have a great coverage of Brazil.

" ...vector maps are not likely for the near future, due in part to the hugely greater load this could put on my server/bandwidth, etc. One thing to note however, is that the vector maps are quite efficiently cached on the phone, so it is possible to download the maps in advance... "
Wouldn't download in advance put the same load on your server?

" ..(routing) it will again be based on OSM data (I don't know of any other routing providers which don't have strict licensing issues for using the data for live navigation). "
The idea I gave was just having something like: "routing ulr:" where the user could type in whatever he/she wants. So you wouldn't be involved in any license issues.

" ..you mention parsers for various formats - some of these are available in the UPLOAD pages of the website "
Yes, I know that. But the question is when I get off track I need some way to get a new route imediately. In fact, for the directions I already know by heart I don't even need to create a route and download it to the phone.

Anyway, I clearly understood your answers and know that you have your own plans and roadmap for the software. It is simply impossible to make everyone satisfied and you have to establish priorities.

Thanks for your quick answer and congratulations for the great job again.

Mr. Milk

Hi,

" That's one more reason for me to have raster. OSM does not really have a great coverage of Brazil. "
Mmmm, I agree its probably not the best place (currently) to use OSM maps - but it does look as if the main cities in Brazil are beginning to be mapped in increasingly more detail - hopefully won't be tooo long before the coverage reaches a critical mass...

" Wouldn't download in advance put the same load on your server? "
I had imagined that a totally offline solution would involve downloading a rectangular grid of tiles in one go, whereas general mobile phone usage seems to be more based around a particular route or small area, which tends to be much lower in total tile-count than simply grabbing the big rectangle in one go. Also, the slower request nature of 3G/GPRS/small mobile screen, etc, does hugely reduce the 'spikes' in the tile requests...

Cheers,
Stephen