July 21st 2010: Version 1.8.7 available for iPhone and iPod
This update is primarily to resolve compatibility problems with the iPhone 4's high-resolution display. A side-effect of this is that low-res maps are now "overzoomed" if you zoom in beyond their limited resolution, rather than showing the "Upgrade map" message.
It also makes some minor adjustments for iOS 4: fast app switching is now supported, and map downloads will continue in the background if you switch to another app or put the device to sleep.
July 14th 2010: New Canadian Maps
New maps are now available for some parts of Canada, as shown below:
The new maps are those published by Natural Resources Canada under the brand "CanTopo". The rest of the country is covered by the "CanMatrix" series.
One potential problem with these maps is that they mosaic with adjacent sheets less well. This seems to be because the maps have been produced at a variety of different resolutions. You can see this if you zoom in on the scale at the bottom of the map. A future update to the app will make it possible to mosaic maps whose scales differ, but this change is will not be soon.
You can install these new maps using the "Check for new version" button in the Map Settings screen. Note, however, that this button is subject to false positives - please confirm that the map you're interested in is shown on the image above first.
June 25th 2010: iPhone 4 problems
If you have the new iPhone 4 you will have noticed a problem with the app when zoomed right in. Because of the new phone's higher-resolution screen, the device asks the app for an additional level of map tiles that doesn't exist when you're zoomed right in. The result is a strange effect where each map tile is replicated four times.
The work-around for the time being is just to not zoom in that far. I hope to have a proper fix soon.
If you notice any other problems with the new phone or with iOS 4.0 on older phones, please get in touch.
June 19th 2010: Version 1.8.2 Available
This update fixes the issue affecting Alaska on the map index grid, described below. It also fixes a problem with some maps that have a black stripe at their edges that interferes with adjacent maps when mosaiced, and resolves a crash when certain websites are visited for waypoint download.
June 9th 2010: Bug affecting Alaskan maps
Version 1.8.1 was supposed to only fix bugs, but it seems to have introduced a new one: most of Alaska has become inaccessible. Specifically, the 1:63,360 maps are not shown on the grid and so can no longer be selected for download, though any maps that you downloaded before upgrading will still be available.
So if you need Alaska and you've not yet upgraded to version 1.8.1, you might prefer to wait for the next version. (Information about a work-around now removed.)
June 8th 2010: Version 1.8.1 Available
This update for both the iPad and iPhone versions of the app is a bug-fix release. It should resolve a number of issues including crashes when selecting uninstalled maps from search results, when viewing the waypoint files screen, and when downloading waypoint files from the web. It also now understands waypoint files whose names have extensions in upper case.
April 24th 2010: Topo Maps for iPad
A separate version of the app, "Topo Maps for iPad", is now available for iPad owners. This has essentially the same functionality as the iPhone/iPod version but makes use of all the extra screen area to show more of the map. The iPad does make a really excellent map viewer - I hope you like it.
One bug has been reported already, however; it seems that selecting an uninstalled map from the search results screen will make it crash. The workaround is to instead select a nearby feature from the search results. For example, if you search for "Grand Canyon AZ", don't choose the row with the map symbol but instead choose the row with the "populated place" symbol. Then, touch the map square to select and install. I'll fix this in an update soon; please let me know if you find any other misfeatures that I should resolve at the same time.
March 30th 2010: Version 1.7 Finally Available
Thanks for your patience - it has been a while since the last update. This version finally adds waypoints, expands the search database to more than a million features, and updates the operation and display of the GPS.
I hope you enjoy the many new features in this version. Do review the user guide to make sure you don't miss anything. Feedback about the new features would be much appreciated - it's likely that things will be refined in future updates.
January 23rd 2010: Server Problems
The server that controls map downloads and also operates this website failed early today. It was down for about 10 hours, but now seems to be functioning normally. The cause of the problem has not yet been identified.
Apologies to everyone who was unable to download maps during this period.
December 2nd: Dual GPS Cradle for iPod Touch
If you have an iPod touch, you may be interested in the new GPS Cradle from Dual. Your iPod simply plugs into the cradle and GPS location information is then available to your apps, including Topo Maps. Dual have tested the cradle with Topo Maps and report that it works correctly; the only issue you may encounter is that the app doesn't wait long enough for a location to be reported. In this case, just touch the button again and it will continue waiting.
October 19th: New maps for Virginia
I've installed about a hundred new versions of maps in the NW Virginia / E West Virginia area. Specifically they're in the rectangle between 38-39 degrees N and 78-80 degrees W. To get the new versions, just delete any maps that you currently have in that area and re-download them.
Do please let me know if you find other areas where newer versions of the maps are available.
October 9th: Version 1.6 adds multiple map downloads and "quick install" mode
This version adds a number of features that you're sure to find useful if you want to view large numbers of maps. You can now select multiple maps to install in one go (just touch one corner map until it's selected, and slide your finger to select more). Also, you can now choose the "Quick Install" mode: this downloads a lower-resolution version of the map that's typically about ten times smaller than the full version. You can later upgrade these maps to full resolution using a button in the map settings popup.
Multiple downloads are currently limited to ten maps at full resolution or 100 maps at low resolution. This is a per-use limit - there is no limit on the total number of maps that you can install, apart from the capacity of your device.
The app should now start significantly more quickly if you have large numbers of maps installed. This should also fix the problems identified with version 1.5, described below; please get in touch if you have any problems.
Finally, an additional co-ordinate format, degrees and decimal minutes (i.e. dd mm.mmm) has been added.
September 19th: Problems when hundreds of maps are installed
The more maps you have installed, the longer the app takes to start. Most users will not notice this, but if you have hundreds of maps installed it can get annoyingly slow. Version 1.6 will improve this.
This turns from an annoyance to a bug when the startup time exceeds about 20 seconds, because the device decides that the app has failed to start and kills it. For this reason, if the app takes more than about 15 seconds to start I suggest that you do not install more maps without also deleting some.
It is possible that version 1.5 is worse in this respect than version 1.4 was. For that reason, if you currently have version 1.4 and are considering upgrading to version 1.5 you should consider deleting some maps before upgrading. More info here.
September 17th: Problems when upgrading to version 1.5?
If you were one of the first users of Topo Maps back in March, you may be affected by a problem that has been identified when upgrading to version 1.5. If you first purchased Topo Maps version 1.1 or later, from April onwards, you will not be affected. More info here.
September 14th: Version 1.5 adds Canada, Alaska and Map Mosaics
The most obvious change in version 1.5 is the new app icon. Apart from that, there are two important new features. Firstly, the area covered has been extended to include Alaska and Canada. These maps are accessed via an additional satellite index map to the North of the existing one. In Alaska the maps are a mixture of 1:24,000 (mainly in the South and Anchorage area) and 1:63,360 (other areas). In Canada, the app uses Natural Resources Canada's 1:50,000 maps. These seem to cover almost the whole country, though many areas in the North are monochrome.
The second feature is the ability to mosaic together adjacent maps. This is intended to make it easier to navigate in areas at the joins between maps, but it's also useful if you want to get a zoomed-out view of a large area. To use this feature, select the first map from the satellite map as usual and then use the arrow buttons at the edges of the map to add adjacent maps to the mosaic.
The mosaic feature only works where the maps have the same map projection and have been scanned at the same scale, so it may fail to work at e.g. state boundaries. We may be able to improve on this in the future.
If you're considering upgrading to version 1.5 there are a couple of other things to consider:
- This version requires iPhone OS version 3.0 (or newer). If you're still using version 2.x, this update will not work.
- If you bought the app when it first came out, note the maps installed using version 1.0 will be erased during this upgrade. All maps installed using later versions will continue to work.
July 21st: Version 1.4 adds hill shading and fills the remaining gaps
The most obvious change in this version is the addition of hill shading. When you install a map it now also downloads corresponding altitude data, and from this it computes a shading overlay based on the simulated sunlight direction that you specify. This makes these already high-quality maps look even better, especially when you're looking at a zoomed-out map where the contour lines are hard to see. Of course you can turn off hill shading if you want.
This height data is also used to display an estimated height at the center of the screen. We hope this is useful, but note that the accuracy of this data is relatively poor.
The map database has seen some major fixes in this version and we're now confident that there are only a handful of maps (out of about 54,000) that are missing from the server.
We've also made some improvements to the user interface. In particular the co-ordinate display is now enabled and disabled by means of a button at the top right of the screen. The co-ordinate display is now also available on the satellite map screen, which will be useful if you need to find the map for a particular latitude-longitude position.
Finally, we've made some changes to the way that downloads work. Specifically, if the app detects that a download has stalled for more than 30 seconds it will now make an attempt to poke it back into life. A few users have reported problems with downloads that are probably explained by problems with their network providers; with luck, this trick might help in those cases.
As ever, do let us know what you think of the new version and what you would like to see in the next release.
July 6th: Version 1.3.1 available
This is a bug fix release; it corrects an error in the grid letters in an MGRS grid reference. It also corrects a few issues in the map database.
May 26th: Version 1.3 available
This latest version adds:
- The satellite map now shows about 8,000 national and state parks, forests, wildlife areas and so on. These are also shown in the search results, hopefully making it easier to find the map that you need. These locations have been extracted from the 2 million placenames in the Geonames database; your feedback about further landmarks that we could add in the future - or which we should leave out - would be appreciated.
- The NAD27 map datum is now available in addition to WGS84. This will be useful if you need to line up co-ordinates with map grids, since the map grids normally use NAD27. Note that NAD27 is likely to be inaccurate outside the continental U.S., especially in HI.
- Maps of the U.S. Virgin Islands are now included.
- The "Go to Panoramascope" function has been re-introduced, but with an additional warning message to avoid any confusion in the case when the Panoramascope app is not installed.
May 19th: Version 1.2.2 available
Version 1.2.2 is now available in the App Store; this is a bug-fix release. Previously, some maps suffered from a "stretched pixels" effect at maximum zoom; this should now have been fixed.
May 12th: Website update for mobiles
I've just made some changes to this website that should be invisible to normal web browsers, but which will cause it to display better if you're using Safari on an iPhone or some other mobile browser. All the same words and images are included but, for example, the multi-column layouts are reduced to a single column. My plan is that some future version of the app may link to this site from a "help" function, so it needs to look OK. Let me know if you see any problems.
April 27th: Version 1.2 available
The latest version is now available in the App Store with the following new features:
- A new measurement mode displays co-ordinates in decimal degrees, degrees minutes and seconds, UTM and MGRS/USNG. It also shows a scale in miles, feet or kilometers.
- A distance-bearing mode lets you measure between a pair of points, with the bearing shown relative to either true N or magnetic N. Magnetic deviation is computed automatically.
- New buttons make it quicker to navigate between adjacent installed maps.
- Puerto Rico is now included.
- The resolution of the satellite map has been further increased.
- The index grids for HI and MA have been tidied up.
- A few minor bugs have been fixed, hopefully making the app operate more smoothly; in particular the flashing issue seen with some maps at some zoom levels is improved.
Please note, however, that inter-operation with the Panoramascope app has been removed. If you found this feature of older versions useful you may prefer to not upgrade. I have removed this feature at Apple's request: they believe that a user who did not have the Panoramascope app installed would be confused by the message that the operating system displays when Topo Maps tries and fails to start the Panoramascope.
April 14th: Map coverage update (FL, ND and NE)
A user emailed me recently to complain that the maps that he needed in Florida didn't seem to be available. On investigation it turned out that most maps for Florida, North Dakota and Nebraska were not downloading due to a problem on the server. This is now fixed. My apologies for the inconvenience that this must have caused. I've also put together some statistics about the coverage in each state that you can now see on the questions and answers page. Do let me know if you find that any of the missing areas cover important hiking areas, or if you have any other problems or questions.
April 1st: Massachusetts maps available
Maps of Massachusetts are now available. This state was previously missing for the map archive. However, there is a complication - which may perhaps explain why the maps were previously missing. Much of MA is covered by double-width sheets, i.e. each download covers two of the yellow map squares shown by the app. For each pair, if you touch the right square the whole double-width map will be installed; if you touch the left square you'll get a "download failed" message. For extra confusion, the name shown on the map is often the name of the left square shown on the app. I will try to tidy this up in a future version of the app. Do let me know if you find any problems with these new maps.
April 1st: Version 1.1 available
Version 1.1 has finally made it to the App Store! I do hope that you like the new features; I'm already working on version 1.2 which adds even more.
March 25th 2009: New web site
Version 1.1 of Topo Maps and a new demo version are currently in review at Apple. I can't say how long that will take, but somewhere between a week and a month is likely. While I wait for them to cast their judgment I'm putting together this new website describing all the features in the new version. If you're currently using version 1.0 I think you'll like the new higher-resolution satellite map and the ability to search for maps by name. I'm now deciding what features to add to version 1.2 - if you have any requests, do please get in touch.