1.5.2 BETA - new vector LoMaps - online and offline!

[Jan Čapek]

Hello!

To our BETA testers, we can finally present pre-release version 1.5.2 with completely new vector based world-wide LoMaps and LoPoints database, on which we have worked on for recent months. Both online and offline!

Our default tourist maps were rebuilt from scratch and are providing numerous improvements compared to their previous generation, including better rendering of tourist or bike paths in various zoom levels. The maps are no longer rasterized, so you can rotate them and have texts in correct orientation or enjoy smoother zooming. Maps are already generated with whole-world coverage, so any region you might be interested in is ready to be explored or downloaded. Maps are also complemented by altitude data to render map shading which greatly improve orientation on hilly terrain.

With new maps you are getting also new generation of our POIs database, which is streamed or downloaded together with the maps data. Among others it allows you to search for POIs in downloaded regions even without internet connectivity.

Both online and offline data are the same, which allows the app to seamlessly transition between regions with offline data and others. There are only few exceptions like hill shading data or POI community content being loaded from the internet even in downloaded regions in the default mode. And speaking of modes, there is automatic mode which handles map and other content switching for you, or you can force the app to use only offline or online data if you have reason for it and know what you doing.   

For now, offline maps are available to Gold Premium users or to everyone who didn't yet spend their 3 free downloads presents.

There are huge amount of app and infrastructure changes under this version, so please let us know your feedback or if something is not working as expected!

Thanks

P.S. In case you would willing to help us occasionally testing some hot stuff and want to join our iOS BETA community to get access to some features prior their public release, let us know your Apple ID and Locus account via private ticket in our helpdesk: https://help.locusmap.eu/ticket/add

[herve.caf]

Thanks Jan for the good news.

offline maps are available to (...) everyone who didn't yet spend their 3 free downloads presents.

How does this match with the answer to my former question in this topic?

Should I join the Beta community to try and test this new iOS version (and besides benefit from the 3 free downloads prensent)?

[Jan Čapek]

Hi herve.caf,

you should join BETA, if you are willing to test pre-release and possibly unstable versions and give us feedback.

We hope to do public release of offline maps capability during next week if all go well. So far we are on the right track, after some previous delays.