UKH

Just read that ViewRanger will be “deactivated” early next year … not sure if this means it’ll truly stop working and disappear off my phone or not. Some people are talking about having it on a specific phone with airplane mode all the time. 

has anyone got any other excellent alternatives to ViewRanger (for iPhone)?

OS Maps.  Twenty quid a year, download anything you like for offline use.

OS Maps.

If you've an account with viewranger then your mapping etc will transfer over to outdooractive who bought them over.  The app isn't a patch on VR though unfortunately.

Anquet is another alternative with quite a good desktop / smartphone linked apps.  Not sure how good the iOS version is being on Android!

Cheers,

.stu

I’ve got MemoryMap and OS maps on iOS. Both are good at different things though I tend to use MM the most for route/track making. ViewRanger was good when using abroad, used a lot in Spain, not sure what Outdooractive will be like abroad yet.

Where did you read this? I was hoping I'd still be use it for a while longer. Very annoying.

Logically it means that they will stop running the webservice at least. I guess they might well help the App running for a while longer. The tracking stuff can be done using all sorts of options of course, so minimal loss there.

They want to drive traffic towards their web platform after all.

I did try Outdooractive out a bit recently - my one year premium subscription is due to expire quite soon so I thought I should - and it wan't terrible. The route planning is actually really quite good, and having Harvey's mapping is nice.

The means to download a lot of offline mapping was clunky though, and even seemed rather unstable. If they stop me using view ranger for that I'll try and get OS Maps working well with offline maps.

Copied from the email from them

"Timing

We currently expect to switch off access to the ViewRanger app and website at the end of February 2022. You can start accessing maps and data through the Outdooractive app and website now by following the steps in this email.  
 

One-off payments in ViewRanger
If you made one-off payments to access maps of an area within ViewRanger, then you will be able to access maps of those areas via the free version of the Outdooractive app and website. The maps will be from the same map data provider or from an alternative map data provider depending on the map region:

• Great Britain: if you currently have access to OS map tiles in England, Scotland, or Wales, you will have access to 1:50,000 and 1:25,000 OS maps across Great Britain."

I have all of Scotland plus the English and Welsh national parks at 1:50000 for Viewranger so happy to see these will transfer. Whether or not I get in with the Outdooractive map or not is a different matter.

Allowing transfer of maps appears to be an advance on their previous position which iirc meant losing your ViewRanger maps. That suggests they may be listening to feedback, so there may be a chance of the app improving too.

it doesn’t make sense to me buying a superior app like ViewRanger just for the user base and not integrating the best features of the app into your own product. But who knows?

This. I don't get their approach at all. 

Aye, it's odd to go down that route - but it's only recently that they've added the ability to use OS Grid refs to Outdoor active.  Hopefully they are listening to feedback and will look at issues like it being a PITA to download large areas of mapping for offline use let us customise / simplify the UI we see.  The simple nature of the VR interface is something most people I know really liked about it.

There are some positives - the OA topo maps have got a lot of trails and routes that aren't shown on OS or other mapping platforms so a bit of potential there!

That's just a custom rendering of the Open Street Map though (same as "Viewranger Landscape"), so it's not as if it's something unique to them or something they've invested a lot of money or effort in themselves.

It's at least a little bit encouraging that they say maps people have paid for will be carried over, in the cases that they will.  That's not the case for all their premium maps though - I paid quite a lot (about £130 iirc) back in the Spring of 2019 for a full set of 1:50k OS maps of Ireland on Viewranger, which was the only way I could find any online access to them at the time.

Outdoor Active's current position on those in a nutshell is "They might be available on OA in the future and they might not.  If they are you'll have access, if they're not tough."  It's not great.

They certainly have some routes near me that aren't on the open street map site or VR's topo maps.  user added content perhaps - not that relevant anyway I guess.

Yea, loss of your mapping is pretty crappy - OA's response is pretty par the course for most items they've been challenged on after the takeover unfortunately.  Seemed to take a lot of online hassling to get them to add OS grid refs even which kept getting the "we're looking into it for the future" type responses.

Sad to lose a good resource in VR - the vast majority of people I know using a mapping app seemed to have ended up on VR which talks volumes for it's quality.

Cheers!

Stu

Oh, that's interesting.  Perhaps I'm wrong about that then, I hadn't noticed any but would have to admit that I haven't really spent any time looking.

I've clicked on the agreement and (after logging back out and in again) now have the OS maps for the whole of GB (not just the areas I'd bought) in the OutdoorActive phone app. However, as far as I can see you can't save maps for offline use in the free version and if you pay for the Pro version you've got the OS maps anyway (and the latest versions) so there's not really any benefit.

The OS GPS function is wildly inaccurate and dangerously misleading in the field. You cannot rely on it be warned. Today I experienced it being never closer than 1k to where I was. I phoned OS helpline and in polite terms l was told 'tough sorry'

I’ve given Outdoor Active a go for the last couple of months and I’m happy with it so far. Still better than the last time I used the OS Maps app a year or 2 ago. 

Could that be your hardware (e.g. phone)?

That could well be an issue with your phone rather than the app, which will be getting it's location data via the OS.

I have Viewranger premium with the entirety of the UK 1:25K offline. The biggest thing i'll miss is the WearOS app on my Casio WSD-f20. I can head out for a run and not have to worry about having my phone on me and still be able to navigate from the map with a quick glance. 

That app (and Ghostracer) made having the casio smart watch worth.

You could be right but with VR it never faltered.. Will keep trying with OS but confidence knocked.

Backcountry Navigator Pro. Buy once, download OS maps for free. No need to  bother with the Windows App which is subscription based.

That’s what I thought the deal was with VR.  Buy the full app, buy all the maps and they’re all mine to keep.  Oh hang on…

Is it called backcountry navigator xe? I can’t find one called pro…?

No, you buy the app, you then download the OS map tiles for free.

No. Just realized that query was for an Apple App which I know nothing about other than that there is one 😐

On Android, it's called Backcountry Navigator Topo GPS. You download the demo app, then purchase from within the demo (was around £7 when I bought several moons ago). XE version enables integration with a Windows App for planning routes (but again I avoid Windows products as much as I do Apple ones, so I'm unqualified to comment on that too)

Not sure why this is a reply to me. I'm talking about displaying OS Maps in the OutdoorActive app, not the OS Maps one.

Sorry about that. I thought the general thread was about evaluating the GPS options post VR and hoped my input would be of wider interest.

That's all right, the wider thread is, it just didn't make sense as a reply to me.

Nearly all my tiles are for maps in N. Ireland and Ireland and it seemed Outdooractive didn't host these maps. I dropped them a line and they said (in actually a very helpful/responsive post) NI maps should be on there shortly and they are looking to get an agreement sorted re: Irish ones. 

I've had a play with Outdooractive and it doesn't seem anywhere near as good as VR. But if it can't host Ireland OS maps then I will need to go elsewhere anyway...

One of the big pros of VR was that it allowed you to buy Irish tiles pretty cheaply so you can pick and choose at a minimal cost. Whereas other providers often need you to buy whole regions or don't seem to cover Ireland at all (Anquet)

After initial teething issues with my phone (and me) l find OS GPS now working very well. I also have installed OS Locate (free) which gives precise 6 fig coords.should you need them.

Is there anywhere else you can go?  I spent ages looking a few years ago and buying maps through Viewranger was the only way I could find to access the Irish OS maps short of buying them all on paper.

I think many people do not realise that offline access to already purchased VR mapping will not be available unless you pay for a premium subscription every year. Not much use when in the mountains.
 

What VR are offering is  clunky online “access” and a time limited free subscription which might allow some limited offline access. 

ALL rather weasely in my opinion and it certainly suggests to me that they are not a company I want to enter in to a further agreement with.
 

We should all  expect free lifetime offline access to all our VR purchased mapping just as we paid for with VR.  When OA bought VR they inherit that customer commitment. Anything less is a rip off and an attempt to coerce into an unwanted subscription model more akin to some sleazy double glazing  sales ploy. They are very simply demanding that we pay every year for something we already bought outright. 
 

if there was an American style class-action to be slapped on VR/OA I’d be joining it but I’ll just probably have to vote with my feet and go ANYWHERE but to O/A and hope many many others do the same. 
 

100% agree with this. I’ve gone to OS maps. 

The sense it makes is it offers the opportunity for VR/OA to force every VR customer who bought a map to start forking out money every year if they want offline access to the maps they previously bought outright. Much better for them than having to compete outright in the subscription mapping world with their competition. Morally reprehensible and (in my view) legally dubious, but a nice little earner for VR/OA! 
 

They ain’t getting a penny of me and I hope many many others do the same. If they had simply allowed us to keep what we have already bought then I would have no doubt got sucked in to buying future subscription products from them at some point so it’s their loss. 
 

I can understand that maintaining the apps etc might not work long term under the VR one-off purchase model so we are looking at a subscription based future.  If that’s the case I’m not going to use somebody who has ripped me off then tried weasely tactics to con me in to staying with them. Many will take the free subscription then leave, but personally, it’s not just about the money, it’s about how they’ve treated us as loyal customers. So I’ll just leave. I would hope many of you will do the same.

My feelings exactly.

I just went to the website, to read what they have to say about offline maps, using an iPad.

A massive pop-up box gives me the option of continuing with tracking and advertising or pay £2.50 per month to continue without advertising.  The poo-up is so large that none of the text behind it can be read, so I can’t read the deal about offline maps.  There’s no option to continue without cookies.  That doesn’t seem to fit with the law around being able to opt out of cookies.

can you download all OS tiles, 50K and 25K ? 

I am a VR user on android, paid for the national parks don't really want to give OA any money, current price is 13 quid for Nav Pro ...

Out of interest, how csn they stop you using a downloaded app and tiles? None of my apps auto update.

I use ANQUET on the iPhone. I find it generally reliable, although it always has a bit of a hissy fit around the time of annual renewal. It is also good on the PC for printing and planning, but the Mac version is somewhat crude around the edges, although perfectly usable.

You need to be careful to download you maps at home to ensure they are there when you have no signal!

Just had a play with Outdoor Active route planning part - appears that it won't let you not snap'to the closest path/BW/road when plotting a route on the OS mapping. Or am I missing something?

Turn off the snap by clicking the button at the bottom of the screen? 
(Four buttons in a grey bar - third from the left has a logo of a horseshoe magnet and toggles the snap on/off.)

Also in case anyone needs to know from the website  Routebuddy.com

Please note that RouteBuddy will be closing for business from 31st December 2021
1. Please backup all of your maps, software and manuals for RouteBuddy and Atlas
2. More information to follow…

Pretty predictable given their recent behaviour.

Most excellent. I did not spot that! 

I don't think you can on the free / basic profile unfortunately.  Saving maps/routes offline is only on the pro and pro+ subscriptions.

Even then it's crap - as you can't download tiles, or similar like on VR but need to download area shown on your screen (40x40km max at  a time).  Takes bloody forever and seems to lose the downloads sometimes if you log out off the app.

So many bad aspects of the app, a real shame that VR is being shut down in it's favour!

Cheers,

STu

I cannot describe how infuriated I am about the possibility, or probability, of losing the superb functionality and data provided by Viewranger. 

I have used Viewranger in locations across the UK and in Poland, Ireland, USA, Albania, and elsewhere. It is a programme for land navigating in any circumstance. Outdooractive looks like a programme for someone who is running late for their spa appointment. 

It's clear some functionality has improved during recent months but they've had over 2 years to sort this and here we are counting down the days. How stupid do you have to be to buy something that good and then mess it up?