We wrote up a quick Help article to tell you how to customize the stats that show on the bottom of the map on Android. It’s easy to do, but hard to spot!
We also have a big Android release coming this week or next… stay tuned.
These days, everyone “checks in” code at Gaia GPS – all seven of us checked in some sort of technical work this month. Like many software developers out there, we use GitHub.com to collaborate and keep our code in version control, and we see “check-ins” flow in each day.
This is what we do in our office each day, and how we spend the money you spend with us:
Android – Jesse & Anna – Jesse and Anna are both hard at work on our Android app, and we’ll have a new release for Gaia for Android out today.
GaiaCloud – Anting – Between classes at Berkeley, Anting has made many improvements to cloud.gaiagps.com recently, ranging from bug fixes, to KML uploads, to improvements to the Gallery page this Monday – continuing his work from his internship this summer.
Maps – Savannah – Savannah completed two maps using CartoCSS and PostGres, via TileMill – US Inland Rivers and USGS Geology. She also leads our user support, and wears many hats in general.
GaiaGPS.com – Steve – Our website has long been in need of some improvements, and Steve has done a lot to make the site convey more information and behave like a modern website. Notably, you can now browse Gaia maps on the site, and yesterday Steve overhauled the Apps page as well. The GaiaPro page is up next.
Weather – Ryan, aka GutHook – We are working with a Gaia GPS user in Maine who develops his own trail guide apps, to work on our weather capabilities. He checked in a bunch of interesting stuff this week. Like Jesse, Ryan thru-hiked the PCT.
Bugs and Misc – Andrew – As for me, I’ve has to resuscitate trailbehind.com this week, which failed after Google Maps transitioned to API v3. I also did point releases for Gaia GPS and Skipper to address user-reported bugs.
Earlier this week, we launched a Gaia Maps page that lets people browse our map sources online – useful for potential buyers, or even users who want a convenient look at the map from their laptop or desktop.
We have also now made a few more tweaks to the page:
- search the map for addresses
- works well on mobile and tablet devices now too
- added a pop-up on first view that shows you where you can read more information about the maps
- other small tweaks
Visitors to GaiaGPS.com will notice a new link in the header: the Maps page. One of the most common requests we receive is for a way to preview our map sources, and that’s exactly what the Maps page lets you do: interactively explore the various maps included with Gaia GPS, right in your web browser.
If you’re thinking of buying Gaia GPS but aren’t sure if it has the maps you need, now you can check them out. Or if you own Gaia GPS but are on the fence about subscribing to Gaia Pro, the Maps page also lets you view the Gaia-Pro-only map sources, including MapBox cloudless satellite and street maps, and the hunting overlays.
And if you’re a happy Gaia GPS user and want to turn your friends and family on to the app, linking to the Maps page is a great way to give them a taste of what Gaia GPS has to offer.
We re moving along with our development of Skipper, and we just released both an updated app, plus an updated set of Inland River Charts from the Army Corps of Engineers. I’m happy to report that Skipper has accrued almost 1,000 paying subscribers since we started in August, and Skipper is used by hundreds of boaters daily.
Our last update, v1.2, was a big overhaul, and 1.3 is limited to bug fixes and optimizations. A few hours after Skipper 1.3’s initial release, the app has been loaded hundreds of times and is super-solid, besides being packed with features of data collection and charting on the water.
Skipper also now has good charts of the Mississippi and other central rivers, along with NOAA charts, USGS topos, and satellite imagery of the world.
Jesse is off in Nepal for his honeymoon, “dog-fooding” the new version of Gaia GPS for Android. Here’s his latest trip report – he has been keeping a daily diary of the trip.
We have now added the ability to upload KML files directly to cloud.gaiagps.com/upload (in addition to GPX). You can also upload pictures along with tracks, directly on the website.
If you use Gaia GPS on iOS or Android, these uploads will automatically sync to your devices via GaiaCloud, for use in your adventures. You can also use this feature without owning the app, so you can share your tracks and view them on the website.
Gaia GPS users can now use official NOAA raster charts in the app. You can add this source by going to “Add More Layers…” in the layers menu. You can also browse the charts online.
We pushed an updated Android beta to the Play Store today, which anyone can download.
This version displays tracks really quickly, you can delete added map sources, and many other improvements (see release notes on the Play Store). If you are interested when we plan to replace the main version of Gaia GPS, you can get a sense of what we feel like we have to do from the Trello board, which is our roadmap.
All of us at TrailBehind now use the new version instead of the old, but we don’t quite have the feature parity we want to replace yet. We’re getting really eager to ship this to everyone!
The US government shutdown has now rippled all the way into Gaia GPS! Two non-essential services we use from the USGS (their elevation lookup API and the National Map) are currently not functioning.
You can see the official notice on the USGS site. Thankfully the charts we feed into our NOAA charts app Skipper from the government are deemed too critical to take down for the purpose of political theater.
In the meantime, we’re going to switch our elevation look-ups to use a commercial API for v8.1, which will have the added benefit of working internationally. The National Map will just have to wait until Uncle Sam and all of his besuited lackeys in Washington decide to do their jobs, but there are of course many analogs for this map source in Gaia.