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Gaia GPS

Gaia GPS

Faster OpenCycleMap in Gaia GPS

by Staff Reports
written by Staff Reports

Recently, the OpenCycleMap server in our app has been slow. This is the map source labeled as CloudMade Topo or CloudMade Cycle in the app*, depending on which version you have. To address this, we now have an alternate OpenCycleMap provider in the app that is working better.

The new tiles are provided by Andy Allan, the creator of the OpenCycleMap, via a bulk service more appropriate to our needs. We plan to integrate this more directly soon, but for now you can access it as follows.

Get Faster OpenCycleMap in Gaia

  • within Gaia GPS, go to Settings->Map Store
  • add the “OpenCycleMap” source (it’s free)
  • restart the app
  • there should now be a sixth source under Map Sources, which you can switch to

If you are used to using the USGS topos, these maps are a good alternative abroad, and they even provide better detail than the USGS maps in some parts of the US. For my hikes, I like to download both types of maps and take them both along.

* I want to note, in case any other software developers are reading, that us switching providers was not CloudMade’s fault, and it was in fact CloudMade who suggested we use Andy’s server instead. CloudMade continues to provide Gaia and our other apps with awesome maps and services, and I can’t recommend them enough to other map developers. In fact, CloudMade stood up the original OpenCycleMap proxy in large part because Gaia needed it, and it was always one of those temporary solutions that lasted forever.

So, thanks to CloudMade and Andy Allan for helping us get these maps back to fast again, and making it possible for us to be in business at all.

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Gaia GPS

Gaia GPS 5.0 is Live

by Staff Reports
written by Staff Reports

We are excited to announce the next major version of Gaia – 5.0. You can get it on iTunes now.

This release includes many improvements, including NEXRAD weather radar, new controls for displaying map layers, larger map buttons and popovers on iPad, and many other great changes. In addition, you can now import KML into Gaia, though this was a server side change and not really part of the 5.0 release 🙂

If you are a current Gaia user, check it out and give us a nice review if you like it! If you aren’t a Gaia user, now’s a good time to start! We also released similar updates to our free apps, Gaia GPS Lite and Offline Topo Maps, but we are still waiting on Apple’s approval for those.

I’d also like to give a shout-out to our long-time partner EarthNC, who set up and maintains the radar server we are now using in the app. If you are a boater, make sure to check out EarthNC Marine Charts, which is much better on the high seas than Gaia!

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Gaia GPS

Gaia GPS for Android is Amazon’s “Free App of the Day”

by Staff Reports
written by Staff Reports

For the next 24 hours, you can get Gaia GPS for Android free on Amazon.com. We’re excited to be the featured app, particular over the Memorial Day weekend!

Gaia even made it on to the Amazon home page, in small print of course: www.amazon.com

This happened very mysteriously. Amazon contacted us to be featured, and requested art for the page. And then, a week or so later I got a Google Alert and saw the post.

If you don’t have the store version, now’s a good time to get it for free.

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Gaia GPS

Gaia GPS Ratings are Groovy

by Staff Reports
written by Staff Reports

I apologize if this sounds overly prideful, but I think our App Store ratings really demonstrate the extent to which we listen to our users, and have steadily worked to make Gaia GPS better over time.

If I remember right, Gaia GPS v1.0 was rated at 2.5 stars after launch subsided. Over time, as you can see in the screen capture from iTunes, our average ratings has become 3.5 stars. And our latest release averages 4.5 stars – spanning 10% of our total reviews.

When you have criticism and bad reviews from users, it makes you feel bad, and if you get too much, your software might really suck. But sure enough, if you just listen a little bit, and work on what they want, instead of what you fee like, then users will like your software better.

Get rid of what bugs them, and they will start to appreciate what you were trying to build in the first place.

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Gaia GPS

Gaia wins in the Alps, on all platforms

by Staff Reports
written by Staff Reports

Looks like the big news in the UK this week, besides that wedding of course, is that Gaia GPS is great in the Alps 🙂

According to Wired UK, “Gaia GPS proved the best app for both platforms…”

It’s always fun to get some nice press! At some point, I need to put a web page on this site that collects all the various articles about our apps and company. We’ve had quite a few at this point.

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Gaia GPS

How tile-based, Google-style maps work

by Staff Reports
written by Staff Reports

People often ask me how the maps in Gaia GPS work. Here’s the explanation I gave in email today:

All “Google-style” tile-based maps, which ours are, work as follows.

  • At zoom level 1, the whole world fits on 1 tile.
  • At zoom level 2, the whole world fits on 4 tiles.
  • At zoom level 3, the whole world fits on 16 tiles.
  • At zoom level N, the whole world fits on 4^N tiles.

For the MyTopo maps we use in Gaia GPS, you can fit a pretty big park area or city, with the finest level of detail, in about 10,000 tiles. Those tiles will take up hundreds of megabytes of space on your phone.

In Gaia GPS, you can download as many 100,000 tile chunks (increased from 10,000 on August 17) as you want. Gaia GPS Lite is still limited to 10,000 tiles per download.

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Gaia GPS

Gaia GPS for Android, v2.0

by Staff Reports
written by Staff Reports

After a long time in development and testing, we have finished Gaia GPS for Android, v2.0. This is a big release because it adds tracking to the app and includes a totally reworked UI.

We used code from Google’s MyTracks open source app to add tracking, stats, and graphs to the app, so hat tip to Google for providing yet another good programming toolkit. Besides tracking, the most striking change is the new home menu:

This release has been in beta for several months now, so if you are an Android Gaia user, check it out. If you haven’t bought the app, you can download the free, ad-supported version.

With these additions, our Android app is much closer in functionality of the iPhone version of Gaia. Up next, we’re working on POI search and GPX exports. Please let us know your suggestions at android@gaiagps.com.

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Gaia GPS

What’s New in V1.2

by Staff Reports
written by Staff Reports

Anna, Tim, and I are pretty excited about the 1.2 version of Gaia GPS. This release really tightens up the code, particularly on 3G phones, and includes a bunch of user-requested features. As a small company, we have very limited resources when it comes to testing pre-release, but now that Gaia GPS is out in the wild, we’re really been able to hone the feature-set and stability of the app to meet the needs of our users.

We now have a really active group of beta testers who are giving us constant feedback and using the app for everything from hiking and trail running, to hunting and horse-back riding. This version is in review by Apple now, and we are hoping it comes out some time next week. Here’s what’s new in 1.2:

New Features

  • pause/resume, last track remembered at start-up, resume any old track
  • guide to waypoint
  • use Decimal, DMS, and UTM coordinates
  • type in coordinates to make map bookmarks manually, in any format
  • OpenCycle maps
  • help button for first screen
  • full-screen map button
  • “me-marker” is now an arrow that shows your bearing (or heading on 3GS phones)
  • app continues recording while locked

Improvements and Bug Fixes

  • more settings are remembered (lock contrast, waypoints, labels)
  • export full-resolution photos, and photos are now truly geo-tagged
  • much faster and more stable on 3G phones
  • fixed various UI inconsistencies reported by users
  • sounds no longer turn off iPod

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Gaia GPS

Offline Maps Make Gaia GPS Groovy

by Staff Reports
written by Staff Reports

I think the killer feature of Gaia GPS is the ability to download iPhone offline maps. Some of the other GPS apps out there cache tiles a little bit, but Gaia GPS is the only one, as far as I know, that provides the ability to select an area of the map to pre-download. There are other iPhone apps that have this feature, but no one besides us has integrated it with a GPS recorder and other releated geo-features.

Downloading a map is simple – here’s a screenshot of the map download feature in Gaia GPS. To create a map, you just bring up the map download screen, and drag a rectangle with your finger. If you choose High Detail (the button at the top of the screen), then the map will include deep zoom levels, but if you do not, the map will be about 1/4 the size. I rarely find it necessary to use High Detail.

What makes these offline maps even better is that you can download MyTopo maps – another feature only available on Gaia GPS. For my money, MyTopo maps are by far the best way to navigate outdoors in the U.S. or Canada. MyTopo maps are not international, but we have also included OpenCycle maps in v1.2, which will come out very soon. Gaia GPS also has road maps from OpenStreetMap/CloudMade.

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