Recently, besides never ending improving of features and fine-tuning of Locus UX, we've been focusing on enlarging the portfolio of maps. Let's remind - in a few recent months we added terrific trail maps of the USA by NeoTreks, satellite images by USGS, Great Britain maps by Ordnance Survey, European maps by Kompass, Polish hiking maps by Compass or very detailed maps of Belgium by IGN. The map offer, therefore, grew significantly and besides the Locus Store where you can view and purchase these maps we haven't presented the maps much. It's about time to change it - we're introducing a new web page with  Locus premium maps.

Premium maps for free

When you call something "premium" it usually means that the thing is pricy and has some extra value high above the standard. We took a slightly different point of view at this term and among the maps we'd like to present we included also the basic maps of the OpenStreetMap project that we offer for FREE both for online viewing and downloading for offline use. OSM maps have come through a great development over its short history, they are growing in detail and are very accurate. Locus Map has offered them since its very beginning, they are still widely used and we don't see a single reason why not to include them in premium maps too.

FREE are also first three packages of vector Lomaps, that we generate from OSM data. LoMaps are the only maps fully optimized exclusively for Locus Map application - their content can be changed according to the user's activity and they contain offline addresses and a vast database of points of interest.

Old friends

Besides the news mentioned at start, the web page, of course, presents also already introduced map makers. Maps of the German Outdooractive, Austrian Freytag-Berndt, Czech SHOCart, French IGN or Swisstopo can be found in Locus for quite a while.

Each map producer or provider is presented by a large graphic depicting the map on a mobile and tablet screen, and an article informing about coverage, available scales and content of the map. All maps can be obtained in our Locus Store that is an inseparable part of Locus application.

We hope that the new web page will help you find the map you need for even better experiences with Locus!

Článek Brand new page introducing premium maps in Locus is on se nejdříve objevil na Locus Map - mobile outdoor navigation app.

Happy Old Locus Year 2015?

Before we start talking about the new year 2016, new horizons and goals of Locus Map application, we'd like to thank you for the previous year:

Again, our ranks have gained several thousand happy new users all over the World. Again, we dedicated 100% of our working (and leisure too in many cases) time to Locus. Again, we listened to your numerous suggestions and ideas and implemented many of them. Again, we tuned Locus so that its use is easier and at the same time it doesn't lose anything from its complexity and versatility. In this you, our dear users, helped us greatly and Locus is, therefore, as you want it to be. And this year it won't be otherwise.

This year belongs to new maps

While last year we focused primarily on Locus UI optimization, this year we'd like to dedicate to expansion of the content of our Locus Store. Above all, we'd like to widen cooperation with our contemporary map providers. Therefore, you can look forward to offline maps of France and Belgium from IGN, German maps from BKG, offline maps of Netherlands by OpenTopo.nl and hopefully we'll manage to fetch some new maps of United States.

Offline address search

We are still working on optimizing the solution of offline address search in our vector LoMaps. All offline data are quite memory space demanding - we are looking for an optimum compromise between the data quality and size and hopefully this year we'll find it.

Dedicated live tracking service

We'll work hard on our own server solution of your favourite live tracking feature - monitoring and displaying Locus users on map in real time.  Nowadays you can enjoy this feature only in cooperation with third parties, e.g. with live tracking service of GPSies.com we wrote about here.

Of course, overall improving, polishing and fine-tuning of Locus will continue as usual - keep sending your ideas and improvements!

We wish you wonderful wandering with Locus through the year 2016!

Článek Happy New Locus Year 2016! se nejdříve objevil na Locus Map - mobile outdoor navigation app.