As a back up I wondered which app/download would be best. I would be needing mapping for the highlands of Scotland, also the western isles. Are there heaps of options or is it limited? Just wondering what would be best for turning the phone on and not having wifi, 3g or even a phone signal. So basically mapping for the north,north west highlands and the Outer Hebrides.

TIA

Martin

are you looking for generally wandering about or OS? for just getting about by car/bike then HERE maps is good, downloadable maps so you can download and area before you go.

OS maps is a different question though.

Something that gives you off-line maps. I like Viewranger. The openbikemaps are good, have a look at that before thinking about paying for OS maps.

There are heaps of options. Viewranger is my favourite. I bought 50k os maps for it as I prefer them to the free open ones. I also use maps.me mainly for roads but it also has quite a few tracks.

I’ve faffed with free stuff in the past Martin but decided to shell out £90 odd on Anquet. All of Scotland and England down to the lakes I think, Landranger HD.

Works great on the OPO as it’s so fast and has the space to store them, rather than on a card seperately.

Seems dead reliable so far.

Viewranger, and either download Open Street map for free, or pay for for OSl.

View Ranger is very good but I’ve also installed OS Maps App. £17.99 for the year and you can download as many areas as you want at 1:25,000 or 1:50,000 scale.

Apple phone for me so not sure if it’s on Android.

The official OS maps app didn’t seem quite finished. There were a few issues when we discussed it last, especially on android.

Works very well on Apple but as I say can’t say for Android.

I’ve been playing around with the Android version of the OS Maps app. There is no “Download Map” function, however….

If I create a route when online and then view the route while still online, it seems to cache all of the mapping I need for that route. When I look at the route when offline, it’s all still on my phone.

I don’t know how much mapping it will cache.

A couple of “dummy” routes (they could just be straight lines) in an area you’re likely to visit might give you all the mapping you need.

I’ve been playing around with the Android version of the OS Maps app. There is no “Download Map” function, however….

There’s not? Hmmm!

On Apple you tap Menu and then download maps. It’s clumsy as only does the one captured on the screen.

My workaround might work for you too?

I’ve downloaded a lot of areas I visit but wort remembering, ta.

Been looking at memory map for this over the last few days but no ones mentioned it here so far. I’ll have a look at viewranger as well, on the above advice.

Thanks folks. I was talking to Epicyclo the other day and he mentioned having maps stored in the phone and it got me thinking. I’ve never bothered with it in the past as I remember getting all excited with the Iphone 3gs and finding out mid ride that nothing would load for me up here in the ‘wilderness’.. so the idea of paying for something that I can zoom in and scroll around nice and quick on the OnePlus screen seemed like the way to go. The idea being that if it’s super quick and well detailed once zoomed in, I can switch it on and off pretty quick and have days of batter life.

So was it a big download ,Bedmaker? I still have the old Iphone – after paying £90, can you download it onto your laptop and other phones too?

Back country navigator, for Only £11.99 you can have the whole of Scotland England and Wales downloaded onto your phone down to OS 1:25000 scale ( and you can zoom in on that). Try it out with the free 30 day trial, I’m happy to give you any help re using it.

In the reviews for ViewRanger in the App, one guy points out that they appear to be quite out of date (7/7/15)

Quite amazed that half way through 2015 OS maps app has glitches in it for Android. I expected heaps of folk to be saying ‘I’ve been using this for years, can’t believe you don’t have it yet!’

Likw B.A. Nana says, Backcountry Navigator is the business. You can select as much/little as you like of OS Mapping, and in fact maps from all over the world. If you’re a ponce like me with an android wear smartwatch it also pops your location and speed, etc across onto the watch face. Get the 30 day trial and see if you like it.

It’s only been out a couple of weeks – and what glitches?

Well not a glitch. I just thought that this was something that would have been up and running for quite some time with everything available to download at the tap of a finger. 2 weeks? I was expecting it to be around 2 years.

They seem to have spent the last few years stopping other people using OS maps and clamping down on copyright. They are now playing catch up.

Backcountry Navigator +1.

I read reviews on that last night, colournoise. Folk seem to like it.

Might try it,Johnnystorm. Thanks.

Might try it,Johnnystorm. Thanks.

What do you mean “Might try it” ?? 👿 🙂
It’s a free trial FFS 🙂 which you can un-install at any point during the 30 days.

Put it this way, if you take the free trial and don’t take the app at the end, I’d be surprised and very interested to know why.

Fair enough, if you’re happy with OSM, OCM, 4UMap or similar mapping, then there are loads to chose from for free ie viewranger.
Personally I wanted OS down to 1:25k and nothing else was acceptable. I believe? BCN is the easiest and cheapest way to do it. I think there are ways of getting OS 1:25k for free, but not in a simple app download (£11.99 is jack all for full British Isles OS down to 1:25K and a whole host of other formats/countries). there’s a course creator, you can import and overlay other peoples routes, record your own route, use it off line.

I looked at viewranger and altho, at the time, it appeared a bit slicker than BCN (3 years ago), it appeared that viewranger would get expensive for all the OS 1:25k mapping I might want.

I’ve installed Viewranger and the option for buying whichever tile you need is quite handy. Might give it a short loop tomorrow to see how it goes.