OS maps on phones

Thinking the current member offer of 50% is pretty tempting, but a couple of questions for anyone that uses it….

I’d using the os maps app on your phone, does it offer live positioning/navigation and does this always need signal?

I see you can download the map prior to heading out, but can you overlay your position into that map via GPS if you’re in they middle of nowhere with no signal?

I’m 99% sure that you could locate onto downloaded maps using GPS with no data signal, downloading was a bit clunky in that it was not unlike screenshotting. You could only download what was showing on the screen, so building up a database of downloaded areas was a pain made worse by it requiring a unique name for each download.

You don’t need signal for position/navigation.

Location just needs view of the sky, no data.  You can download chunks of maps in advance.

I got five years of full access for free when they went subscription because I’d bought enough maps, and it’s great.

It also caches quite a large area around your saved map, or your last used map.

They keep trying to push this ‘routes’ feature as a default view, which is annoying given its a maps app rather than routes, but it seems talking to Memory Map users that there are pro’s and con’s to each, so go with either.

I’ve been using OS for years and mostly it works great.

It caches the mapping for any “route” you download to your phone. In practice you can just make a couple of lines across the map, call that a “route” and cache the map, giving you offline access to large swathes of the country.

If you’ve bought a paper map you can also download the digital version of that to your phone for offline access.

In practice you can just make a couple of lines across the map, call that a “route” and cache the map

Even easier than that – one line joining two dots, the opposing corners of a rectangle covering the area you need.

You can also print upto A3 which can be handy

Thanks for the replies, I’ve subscribed and downloaded the app 🙂

I do love an os map, and at 50 percent off the subscription seems well worth it, even if I only confirm where I am just once!!

If only fatmap still existed. Strava ####s

Never ever rely solely on a phone for navigation and mapping. Print out is possible via app or web browser and take a compass. I’ve been caught out once and it was a valuable lesson in analogue.

tonyf1

Free Member

Never ever rely solely on a phone for navigation and mapping.

Absolutely, I’ve got a compass (and a whistle) permanently in my pack and would always take a paper map on a “wild” ride