Looking for a specific map app on iOS
Hello everyone,
I recently moved to a new town and I'm looking forward to walking on all its streets and discover its secrets. However, it's relatively a big town and it will take me a while to do that.
I also don't like walking all that much and I'm not an outgoing person at all, so I want to gamify this a little bit to trick my monkey brain.
So, as an idea, I wondered if there was an iOS app that used the GPS on my phone (or some other trick that I can't think of) to map my route, save it, and place it on the map of the town so I can coordinate my future routes according to the places I've already visited. It's sort of like those running apps that shows you your route after you finished running, except I want it to be not about running and I want them to save the route data, preferably locally.
Thank you everyone in advance for their time.
Added bonus is it's available for any curious Android folks as well. It's a great alternative to storing your favorite places on Google Maps.
F-Droid link for the FOSS-inclined folk :)
That's pretty good, thank you! I browsed around the app for about 10 minutes and the UI didn't seem intuitive at all to me, but I guess I can get used to it as long as it's functional.
Another thank you for mentioning OSM. I forgot to mention that. The had the idea of contributing to OSM while saving my routes and I'm glad OsmAnd has both features. (There's an OSM edit plugin, hopefully it works.)
Organic Maps is definitely easier to use than OsmAnd, it's also lightweight and has great principles but unfortunately it doesn't have the one functionality I'm looking for, as I tried to elaborate here. Loved the look of the app and how to-the-point it is though. I'll get in touch with their developers to see if they'd have any interest implementing the feature 🙂. Thank you for the recommendation!
Edit: Apparently someone suggested this feature on the project's GitHub page last year but it didn't seem to get much traction.
I would recommend Fog of World. It's available for iOS and seems like it's in beta on Android. (I'm just a user.) I think it does what you want based on your description, and I've used it similarly, to encourage myself to explore new places.
The app shows a map covered with a partially-transparent Fog of War similar to what you would see in an RTS game map. As you walk around, the fog around you up to a certain radius is removed, so you can see where you've already traveled and where you haven't. You hit a red button to start recording your movement, hit the button again to stop.
Things like I about the app are that it's made by a small dev team (maybe just one person) with regular, quality updates and the app is reasonably good about data ownership and privacy practices:
Fair warning, the app does eat battery at relatively quick pace because of the constant GPS and data saving, so I usually make sure I bring a portable battery pack if I'm planning on using the app for many hours like while traveling in a new country. I'm not sure of the actual pace of energy use but a few hours isn't a problem, but a whole day probably would be.
Also, it seems like the pricing has increased significantly (now $25 on iOS App Store) from what I purchased it at just after its release. I would probably pay that amount now considering the mileage I've gotten out of it, but YMMV. It's a for-real one-time purchase, so at least it's not a subscription!
Whoa, this is it! It's exactly the kind of app I'm looking for! Fog of World, what a nice name too. I didn't think of it that way (despite spending years playing World of Warcraft), even though I used the term gamify in my post!
The only drawback I can think of is the price, which you touched upon. With the exchange rate the way it is for my local currency, it's hard to swallow but I might buy it regardless. I don't travel much, if at all, so once I use it for about a week or two, I doubt I'll use the app again but considering it's being developed since 2012, it could be a worthwhile investment should I travel more often than I currently am.
Thank you so much for the spot on recommendation!
Really glad to be able to help :) When I read your post I had to respond because it seemed like it was a good fit, and it's not an easy app to find. I'm glad it was what you wanted.
Regarding the price and exchange rate, that stinks. If it helps, like I said, I am happy with my purchase, especially as a one-time buy. When I was looking up info to write my comment, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the app has gone from v1 to v3 over the years and that I had never noticed because all the updates were free, which is great considering I would have considered it more than fair to pay for new versions.
Anyhow, hope you can find a deal or something to lighten the price a little, and that you get to enjoy the app. Cheers!
You most certainly did! Thank you for your comment again.
Regarding the price, I'll buy the app. As you said and I noticed on their website, the app's being developed for a long time and there's a low chance it will be abandoned the day after I purchase it. It just made me pause a bit for the reasons I stated, plus I recently bought Working Copy which is a similarly priced app, so I'm a bit wary to limit my app purchases for this month. 😄
(Also, it looks like the app can be shared with family members, so that's a big plus. I don't travel much but a member of my family lives to travel and I'm sure she would love to use this app.)
Just to add that citystrides can be linked to your Strava/Garmin/MapMyFitness/Runkeeper accounts and will track your streets for you, so you can easily visualize a nice map of all the activities you've done.
This also looks great! If this were standalone and offline with a mobile app, I'd be set.
It's too bad it relies on another app to work but if OsmAnd doesn't work out and I inevitably use one of @autumn's recommendations, I'll give this one a look. Thanks!
@Bauke's recommendation suits me better, at least on paper, but I'll definitely keep your recommendations in mind if OsmAnd doesn't work out. Thank you!
People have recommended OsmAnd, which will work for saving routes, but it's a bit clunky (getting better, though!)
On iOS there's one other good option. There's an open source app called Out-Run:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/out-run/id1477511092
I know it's got "run" in the title, but you can use it to locally record walks as well. I'd recommend it.
Thanks for the recommendation! Unfortunately, Out-Run is not really what I'm looking for. I did try some apps, including Out-Run, before creating this thread but as far as I was able to tell, Out-Run only tracks your route per exercise. What I'm looking for is an app that saves my routes cumulatively. OsmAnd's record route function works similarly but it gives you the option to continue off your previously recorded route as well as creating a new one, if that makes any sense. OsmAnd is as you said a bit clunky and it has way too many features than I'd like and use but it should suffice for now.
If only I knew coding, feels like this would've been a nice project!
Oh, I see! I didn't fully understand what you were asking for :). Glad OsmAnd works fairly well for you at least.
I actually pay for the subscription to OsmAnd, but I don't use it much. I'm really rooting for OsmAnd to get a lot better. There's a lot of promise to it and it's already gotten a lot better in the past few years, but god can that app ever be confusing haha.
Either way, wanted to make sure Out-Run got a mention, it's fairly new but I was so happy when I found it --- iOS hasn't really had a good free running app for foreeeever, and certainly not an open source one that lets you record locally.
Yeah, it works OK for the time being. As you said, the UI could use a lot of improvement but I'm not necessarily looking for a long term app. I live in a small town so it won't take me too long to achieve my goal. As long as it works straight for a week or two in a way that I want, I'd be happy.
I really like that I can edit OSM via OsmAnd, though. That could be a hook for me to make it at least installed on my phone all the time. It made me create an OSM account make a few edits already, it's fun to contribute! 🙂
Yeah! Editing is great. On iOS you should also check out "Go Map!!" it's a great OSM editor.
Will do! Thank you.
Definitely have a look at MapOut, very highly rated app that does just what you’re asking for and not too much else.
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/mapout/id477094081
Thank you for the recommendation!