You bet! We are giving away three free offline LoMaps to all new Locus Map users. The choice of map is up to you, the whole world is available.

New Locus Map users automatically get a welcome gift of three free offline LoMaps to download. However, many of them don't know what these maps are, where to find them, or how to download them. So here's how it works:

What are LoMaps?

LoMaps are world hiking and biking maps based on OpenStreetMap data.

• Online LoMap is the default map of the application and is always available for free in summer and winter mode.
• Offline LoMap, which can be used even without an internet connection,  is available in map packages that cover individual countries and regions and can be downloaded from the Locus Store. The packages are smaller in size than the raster maps downloaded from the online mode and can be switched to different themes: Hiking, Biking, Skiing, City, and Road. Each theme is based on the same map data but displays different layers and symbols according to the user's needs.

Part of the map package is a database of LoPoints (points of interest that can be displayed not only on top of the LoMaps but also on top of all other maps in the area). The points can be searched, sorted, and filtered in the database (Menu > All Functions > LoPoints). Read more about LoMaps in the Locus Knowledge Base >>

Where can I get LoMaps?

It's the same as all the other maps provided by the Locus Map application - they're available in the Locus Store. The Locus Store can be accessed by tapping Menu > Locus Store (you must be online), then selecting Maps > Product Lines. The LoMaps are the first to appear and offer a wide range of map packs. When selecting a map, it's possible to view the map packs on a preview map - this makes it easy to see which areas are covered by which map.

How do I know that the map is free?

The blue DOWNLOAD button contains an icon of a map pack. Tapping it will bring up a dialog confirming that the map is really free and showing the number of gifts remaining.

Each map packet can be downloaded repeatedly in the version available at the moment of the first download. Updates of LoMaps are charged for a symbolic fee.

How can I download LoMaps to my mobile phone or tablet?

Tap on the blue DOWNLOAD button and then confirm the next dialog.

The map will start downloading. Meanwhile, you can continue to work with Locus Map, the download status will be displayed in your system tray. The downloaded map will appear in the Offline tab of your Map Manager.

What should I do to get all LoMaps for free?

Subscribe or purchase the Premium Gold plan. With it, you can download as many offline LoMaps as you want, including all updates.

Článek Offline LoMaps for free? se nejdříve objevil na Locus Map - mobile outdoor navigation app.

Recently, several of our map partners have released a number of new maps as well as updates to existing titles.

Compass - a tourist classic

The traditional Polish cartographic publishing house has been offering its maps in Locus for several years. Their nice and easy-to-read maps are very popular, not only at their home in Poland. In addition to the basic rich topographic layer, the maps also show marked hiking trails and bike paths, tourist huts and shelters, and other amenities for an active stay in nature. And not only in the mountainous regions of the Polish southern border but also in large areas of the interior, rich in forests and lakes.

Compass has recently released several new maps for use in Locus:

• Paths and bike trails around Krakow
• Suwalki
• Bystrzyckie and Orlickie Mountains

Recently, the already introduced titles were updated: Beskid Śląski i Żywiecki, Dolinki Podkrakowskie, Góry Stołowe, Karkonosze, Podhale, Tatry, Orawa, Spisz, Pogórze Przemyskie, Góry Sanocko-Turczańskie, Beskid Sądecki, Bieszczady, Bory Tucholskie . Since February we have updated Beskid Mały, Beskid Sądecki, Beskid Wyspowy, Gorce, Jura Krakowsko-Częstochowska, Masyw Śnieżnika, Góry Bialskie, Pojezierze Olsztyńskie, part of the south, Ponidzie, Puszcoj Białowia Zuszcza Białowka, Ziemia Kłodzka .

Onmaps - news from Germany

Recently, onmaps from the German manufacturer GeoGLIS were added to Locus Store. They are available online and for offline download, in a wide range of scales from 1: 10000 to 1: 1000000. They are based on ATKIS + ALKIS data from the German Federal Cartography and Geodesy Agency BKG , combined with data from official national map organizations of individual states. The overall appearance is similar to BGK's DTK maps - maps contain a detailed road network, topographic drawing, contour lines, information on land types, and landscape features.

Maps are available as part of a monthly and now also an annual subscription. The subscription contains the map topics "Pastel", "Dezent", "TK25" and "Dezent mit Höhenschummung".

Cartographia - Hungarian number one

Recently, detailed tourist maps of Hungary by the cartographic publishing house Cartographia have undergone another major dose of updating. Maps are among the most popular in Locus and have long been number one on the Hungarian market. They contain, on the one hand, a very nice topographic drawing, faithfully depicting the landscape, and also a dense network of paths for hiking and cycling - marked trails and footpaths, pilgrimage trails, nature trails, and bike paths.

In addition to the road network, there are many points of interest - tourist attractions, sports and recreational facilities, campsites, views and lookout towers, tourist cottages and shelters, and the like. If conditions allow this year and you are going on holiday to Hungary, maps from Cartographia are a unique choice.

Článek Maps of the middle Europe – news and updates se nejdříve objevil na Locus Map - mobile outdoor navigation app.

Maps of Alpine Association of Slovenia (PZS - Planinska zveza Slovenije) in the map scale 1 : 25.000 are one of the most useful navigation tools for visitors of Slovenian mountains. Marked trails, mountain huts, paths, natural and cultural points of interest, tourist infrastructure and everything else important for activities in the nature are represented here in detail. Field data are continuously updated by volunteers of Slovenian alpine clubs. Alpine Association of Slovenia unites 287 of them, counting over 55 000 members.

PZS maps can be obtained in 16 offline packages offered in Locus Store. Maps cover northern part of the country and more will be coming in near future: Bohinj East and West, Jalovec in Mangart North and South, Kamniško Savinjske Alpe (Steiner Alpen), Karavanke East and West, Krnsko pogorje East and West, Stol East and West, Triglav East&West, Triglav National Park East&West. 

As has been mentioned, maps of Slovenian mountains are available in Locus Store in "Europe > Slovenia > PZS Slovenia" folder:

Installation is standard as in case of other offline-package form of maps of our partners, e.g. Ordnance Survey or Swisstopo - purchase in Locus Store, download into the "Offline" tab of your Map manager:

Your purchased map can be downloaded from Locus Store freely for one year. Then we recommend creating a backup of your map somewhere out of your mobile or tablet - on your PC or Dropbox, for instance. Update of the map from Locus Store is a subject of another purchase! Your map can be used on any device running Locus with your Locus Store account.

Let's go to Slovenia to enjoy beauty of its countryside!

Článek Detailed hiking maps by Slovenian Alpine Association finally in Locus se nejdříve objevil na Locus Map - mobile outdoor navigation app.

Old-new map?

What? The title is boasting that all is just new! Yes and no, the truth is somewhere in between. We're talking about maps of renowned Czech publisher SHOCart that Locusers have known for ages, especially their awesome biking maps with surface classification and recommended bike routes. New is our contract with the publisher, owned by traditional Austrian publishing house Freytag-Berndt.

[caption id="attachment_9160" align="aligncenter" width="800"] SHOCart bikemap[/caption]

And what comes from the new agreement? All hiking and biking maps of SHOCart are frequently updated, we're linked directly to the publisher servers. What's more, we've got updated hiking maps of almost whole Europe by Freytag-Berndt. The worse news is that nothing of these data is free of charge:

• Online SHOCart hiking and biking maps of the Czech and Slovak republics, online hiking maps of Europe by Freytag-Berndt - you can subscribe the access to them either directly from the map manager or in Locus Store. The price is 320 LoCoins for a month or 1600 LoCoins for a year.
• Offline SHOCart hiking and biking maps of the Czech and Slovak republics, online hiking maps of Europe by Freytag-Berndt - you can define your own map crop, select map zooms and purchase the map tiles in a bundle for offline use. The price is 8 LoCoins for 100 tiles.
• Offline ready-made packets of biking or hiking maps of Czech and Slovak republics by SHOCart - they contain approximately identical map crops as the paper editions of the publisher, all in three zooms up to 1:50 000. The price is single for all packets - 230 LoCoins.

[caption id="attachment_9161" align="aligncenter" width="800"] Freytag-Berndt map, cycling paths in Antwerpen surrounds[/caption]

We wish you a lot of hiking/biking pleasure with these old-new maps and we sincerely hope you'll get used to their new terms of sales.

Simplified online map download

We reworked download from the scratch. It's much clearer and more intuitive now - a piece of cake even for the greenest Locus beginners. We threw away nothing, all your favourite settings and options are there, hidden behind magic buttons "Show advanced options".

Estimated time of travel for your trip planning

Locus offers another improvement for planning of your hiking, biking or family trips. We developed an algorithm that can calculate estimated time spent on your trip, including your snack breaks. It's based on the distance, elevation gain and selected type of your trip or workout activity. The feature can be found in the tool menu of a route:

You can select among three walking profiles, nine (!) cycling and two cross-country skiing profiles. We're sure you'll always find one that suits you best. We suppose to hear many useful ideas how to fine-tune these profiles from you and we are, as usual, ready:).

Minor changes and advanced gadgets

And as usual, the new version brings loads of minor adjustments and fixes and also improvements of more advanced features for our geeky users - at random - new presets for Quick WWW bookmark feature, support of BBox tags in the same feature, option to stop Live tracking directly from the notification bar, improved display of breaks and rests in track charts or a new system of work with geocaching waypoints.

Článek New Locus, new maps, new features 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.