The perfect mapping/GPS app?

[nirakaro]

For GPS I use Viewranger, but if there’s a way to bulk download maps for offline use I haven’t found it, and downloading them tile by tile is a PITA.
For general map browsing I use MapsWithMe because it lets me download whole countries/regions.
On the rare occasions that I want turn-by-turn navigation, in the past I’ve used Nokia maps, which again lets you download whole countries IIRC. I haven’t needed that since I moved onto Android.
In a perfect world, I’d have all those possibilities in one app. What are my options?

[Psamathe]

For GPS I use Viewranger, but if there’s a way to bulk download maps for offline use I haven’t found it, and downloading them tile by tile is a PITA.

You can select many tiles at once. There is an upper limit on the number of tiles per download (OSM/OCM get a bit "upset" with excessive tile downloading as it loads heir servers and costs them - but you can do several).

I think it look me around 3 downloads for most of East Anglia/ SE England/London/etc. (big area).

From memory, in the screen where you select tiles you can touch and drag e.g. top left to bottom right. You can switch on and off individual tiles/regions. There is a button in the toolbar at the bottom to switch between your finger dragging the map or selecting tiles. I has been some time since I did it as I found how cheap ViewRanger OS maps were and purchased the entire East of England for less the £8 (in-app purchase) - and I recon you get better altitude info (i.e. not depending on GPS altitude but you can get at map altitude as well (i.e. both graphs) - though some say you can get that with just downloading the free altitude data and one free sample OS map (I'm not convinced about that and for £8 I was not going to investigate).

(I seem to remember that iOS and Android were similar in this regard, though I am on iOS only now)

Ian

[cotswolds]

I've used OSMAND successfully, including touring in Europe. You can download whole countries or - for most countries - smaller regions. Turn by turn navigation worked well for me - in unknown territory, you never know if its given you the best route, but I was quite happy with the routes it chose.

The offline mapping is vector based rather than tile based, which means the file sizes are much smaller, but maybe slower to display, depending on the speed of your Android device.

Being Open Street Map based means that the quality of mapping varies depending where in the world you are, but in Europe I'd says its as good or better than the alternatives, particularly if you want cycle routes.

The UI for set up is very disorganised, you have to explore all the menus to discover what it can do, but I found the functions I needed on the road easy and intuitive.

Rob