Welcome Nomad!

[Andris]

Since the arrival of smartphones and the internet (I know this dates me lol), we've all become increasingly dependent on them to do lots of stuff. One of the most important and useful for travelers is navigation. So those maps that we always collect (still do) at rest areas pretty much stay in the pocket at the side of the car door, because we use smartphone navigation. When we do open the good old map, those of us above a certain age quickly remember why we like the phones so much - the map lettering is too small, not enough detail, can't see it at night, etc etc.

When we're at home with a good data plan, the smartphone is excellent for navigation. But when we go abroad, or even into the backroads or on a nice forest walk in the middle of nowhere, we can suddenly find ourselves without data ... or not wanting to pay extreme rates for local data plans. In the USA, this can even happen in developed areas, where there just isn't any tower coverage. The usual smartphone navigation is just not 100% reliable because it usually needs mobile data to work right.

Being a back street, far away places nomad myself, and being a hardware/software engineer, I decided to make myself a navigation tool that would work anywhere and any time, even if the phone is in airplane mode. I'll keep it short and just refer you to GooglePlay, where Poynterra Navigator was just posted. Check it out at https://play.google.com/store/search?q=poynterra&c=apps. This app is full of features that you'll find useful - and indispensable - as time goes on. When you do have a wifi connection, it can search for the coordinates of the points (waypoints) you want to visit and put those points in a folder. If you display them on the built in map, they'll continue to show up in that resolution even when you go into airplane mode (to save battery!). Points can be easily added on the go, even in airplane mode. The whole thing is also a sophisticated waypoint management system that lets you save information about waypoints, share folders with others, download special collections of waypoints, etc. I'm pretty proud of it and can't live without it now.

Again, check it out at https://play.google.com/store/search?q=poynterra&c=apps.

[Robert O'Kruk]

How does this compare to Google Maps (offline maps) or MAPS.ME ?

[Andris]

GoogleMaps offline is great , if you remember to download your areas of interest. But the biggest weakness of the other solutions is that you can't save waypoints into folders, or share sets of waypoints with someone else very easily. They also take way more battery power to guide you in the turn-by-turn way. Poynterra is simple arrow guidance when you want it, always accurate at lowest possible power. Also has tools like triangulation of far away landmarks, trip stats, etc.

[WGroleau]

I use maps.me on IOS. Navigation is mediocre at best: strange detours for no reason, and last week it asked me four times to make an illegal maneuver. And once it said turn right when it had a left turn on the map! Editing the map completely sucks—you have to identify the place/item from a fixed list which usually does not offer what it is, so I call it an “attraction” to be fixed when online. It also sometimes moves an added item fifty meters south when you click Save. I’ve been tempted to download the source and make an app that actually works. And if you try to record a track, it arbitrarily decides at random times to stop tracking. Then when you force it to start again, it draws a straight line across whatever from where it stopped to where you are.

As for poynterra, the lite version has only two reviews and they are both “one star.” Plus, it wants access,to my photos? What the heck is that? Just because Google is NSA’s biggest competitor doesn’t mean app,developers have to get on the bandwagon.