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Love Locus Pro on my Samsung Tablet...is it also available for iPad?

Frank shared this question 6 years ago
Answered

Love Locus Pro on my Samsung tablet, but is it also available for iPad?

Replies (3)

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Sadly no. I do understand and fully accept the developer's reason for not wishing to dissipate his efforts across two different systems. Apps which are present on both platforms are frequently not as good in one implementation or the other. I think the benefit of a dedicated effort outweighs the benefits of availability on both platforms.

I am normally an IOS person but bought an Android phone specifically to use Locus and I remain extremely pleased to have done so.

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I can attest to the fact that a complex app developed for one platform does not always make a smooth transition to another. I know many people with iPhones who praise Gaia GPS. I've installed the free version on my Android phone and my wife's iPhone and the two products may look (almost) the same but don't perform equally well. Reading their online forums, the Android version has had a long history of functional and performance problems. Map-rendering is slow and it stutters (even with cached maps) which is not the case with the iOS version. While casually exploring the app, I found three bugs (two have now been corrected).


There are a few nice design decisions in Gaia but, overall, its Android version is bested by its competitors, especially by Locus Map. Gaia's free version behaves more like a demo because it limits you to use only one raster-based map and you can't download it (only through auto-caching). Their subscription model (annual fee) offers two tiers where each one provides access to more maps (and downloading).


All of the maps are raster maps and many are freely available from other sources. The silly thing I discovered is that their maps are listed in a JSON file (i.e. mapsources.json). On iOS, this file would be invisible to the user because of how iOS conceals access to an app's resources. However, that's not the case for Android. Given that they charge extra to get more maps, you'd think the Android developers would encrypt it to keep out prying eyes (like mine).

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I too understand the developers reason.

We belong to a 4-wheelers chapter of 430 families and some use Back Country Navigator (android only), myself included,

and others use Gaia (android & iOS), my wife included, but I have found Locus Pro to be better and more user friendly

than the above mentioned, that is why I asked the question.

Frank

On 3/3/2018 1:10 AM, Locus Map wrote:

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