Maverick Pro - Android App with very nice GPS capabilities

If you are looking for a nice and simple android app, but with all the best features to do some GPS tracking, Maverick is a good choice. It can be found in the Market for about €5.

Recently, the version 1.75 enables you to move the app on SD card! Nice one there developers!) So don't be afraid to get download it... You won't run out of memory!

 So let's start! The Home interface is simple but well organized:

• top left: "Maps" button to select which you want to use.
• top right: Zoom in/out though the pinch gesture works great too.

Left to Right: Google Maps view, Map menu with plenty of choice, OSM Mapnik view.

The app works so that any maps browsed is cached on your SD card (update: not for google maps since version 1.95). But I would advice to use Mobile Atlas Creator is you plan to use the app on offline mode only. The review about this is coming. Meanwhile, for those who know how to use Mobile Atlas Creator, maybe have a look this post!

• bottom left: Switch between map viewing and some features like track recording, compass and display of speed, altitude and position.

The blue point  on the compass is the destination (called here "Waypoint 4") that is at 5935km from me at the moment when I took the screenshot.

• bottom menu:  
• binoculars allow to search Waypoints(aka Point of Interest or POI), tracks a lot of other stuff.

• The green flag allows to add a POI in the Waypoint.kml file or foursquare.gpx file. Personally, I use the first.

• The GPS grid displays the number GPS available. In the all the above screenshots, I was in a building so 0! But the little squares become yellow when a satellite is in sight.
• Track recording info finally in the bottom right.

The settings are rich:

                                    

As you see, if you want the zoom buttons off, just uncheck the box.

One thing I would like is to have the auto screen orientation. Currently, you have to press "Menu" and "Switch orientation".... Weird...

I hope this review is giving you enough info to decide.

Cheers!

Offline GPS Tracking on your Android phone

Hello,

I have recently bought a great app, Maverick Pro (its review on this blog) that allows to cache automatically Google Maps or any map sources available in the app itself. This is great as I am a big cyclist and I love discovering new roads around Dublin and I don't want to pay the DATA charges to download the maps.
However, while it's caching it automatically when connected to a Wifi AP, you have to browse around the area you want to be cached. And this needs to be done for every zoom level... So you can imagine how painful it can be...

So, I've found a JAVA app (working across Windows, MAC OS-X., etc..) that allows me to download the tiles from Google Maps from a selected area.

The interface is pretty simple. I'll come back to a more detailed review this JAVA app (Mobile Atlas Creator)

Once you have finished downloading the tiles, before you copy them on your MicroSD card, you need to prepare it.

Because the tiles are very small (with Google Maps Street), between 2KB and 12KB, you need to have your MicroSD card to be set with the smallest clusters possible.

For a 2GB card, the smallest is 512B

For a 8GB card, the smallest is 2KB

By default, clusters are usually set to 32KB which with 100,000 tiles can waste a lot of space.

In my case, I have downloaded 686,020 tiles on a 2GB car with 512B clusters, the tiles use 1.14GB of space. On a 8GB card with 2K clusters, all the tiles use 1.94GB of space. You could double that if the 8GB card was using 32K clusters... You can imagine how useful it is if you have only a small MicroSD card.

I'll explain later on how to format a MicroSD card with a different size of clusters.

So, with all those downloaded tiles, you can open Maverick Pro, without any WIFI or 3G connection, and browse around Google Maps like if you were connected to a network. It is really a good app for that which really worth the money.

I'll fully review the app later.

Cheers!

First impressions - Google Sky Map

Hi,

I have just found this app available on the Android Market. I gave it a shot and I am nicely surprise!

If your compass works ok (which is not the case for everyone...), as you move, the sky map does too.

You can limit the info shown with a menu appearing when touching slightly the screen.

Searching for something? Press "Menu" and then a search section pops up.

Just type one later a list of hints appears. Very nice feature!

Then select a result and a cycle will appear with an arrow pointing to the object searched. When you point at objet, you can see it highlighted.

Pretty cool, isn't it?

Other features are available: photo gallery from hubble (no personal upload avaible yet), Time Travel (didn't really test), a night mode (will test when it's dark)...

I'd advice google to use real HD images (if possible) for galaxies, planets, sun, etc. The app would become very attractive then!