Features to make it perfect

[nounours]

PE is a OFFLINE map app. This means exactly this: You download (at home or wherever you have a “free” internet connection) the data you need – normally this will be a city or a country or whatever. 

This includes automatically the map on all zoom levels, all POIs (with correpsonding information as opening hours and the like if available), Wikipedia Entries – and in the new version (which is currently in Beta Test) – also in addition to the Public Transport stops also the public transport LINES. (that’s what we talk about here).

You then go off the road, PE will not need to download anything – you just use the map. Everything you need is already saved on your device.

Why is a first download necessary? The size of the entire OSM-map of the world is in XML 400 Gb, even with the best compression it’s still 29 GB. So you probably don’t want to download an iPhone app with ALL the maps on it, do you?

Nounours

[GeoMagik]

@MikeB, this is one of the many enhancements that will be in our next app update (expected beginning of Oct).   It will be built-in and not require internet or special downloads.  Downloading maps for any city, region, or country will include all public transit info and it will only increase map download size by 2.5%

[GeoMagik]

@nounours, we actually managed to get the entire OSM planet data down to just 7.5GB, however, for performance reasons, we increased the size to 12GB for PocketEarth.

[MikeB]

Many thanks, GeoMagik. I have been downloading transport schedules (pdfs) before I leave and then bringing them on my phone when I travel. It sounds like I won’t need to do that anymore, but even better – if my plans change, I’ll always have the correct information with me.

[BuckyE]

Dear MikeB,

Well, the PE mapping won’t necessarily include “schedules.” nounours will be able to speak to that, knowing more about the kinds and dgrees of information available from OSM, the map data source.

But at least we’ll be getting “maps.” And they look like they’re going to be great!

[nounours]

Dear MikeB,

Indeed, time tables are not in OSM, so they will probably not soon be in PE.

There are was some work done on a general interface, and there also some test applications for specific countries. E.g., there is a interface from the OSM map to the time tables for all Public transport in Switzerland:

http://map.xiala.net/index.php?lat=46.53701926510926&lon=6.64149284362793&zoom=13&map=t&overlays=pt,

I personally think having time table info in a map app is clearly out of scope – it will change to often, and once you have them, people will ask for real-time-schedule information. So, there’re are other apps which provide this kind of information. So the map app should link to this services and show it on the map. This will have the downside on using the data connection, but if it’s done in a proper and efficient way, this should work out ok.

So, yes, I hope that one day I will be somewhere in the street, look for the next Public transport stop with the nearby search, click on it, show all the lines and connections, and being offered directly the schedules to where I want to go to as well as real time traffic information. How does this sound?

@Geomagik: it’s just a dream, I do not expect you to work on it tomorrow 🙂

nounours

[BuckyE]

Dear nounours,

It’s true there are other apps for real-time time tables. But I bet in a year, GeoMagik will have figured out how to partner with the metropolitan authorities in major cities, the way HopStop does in New York.

BuckyE

[Author]

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