Oregon Hikers

If you use Avenza's PDF Maps on your phone, I have what may be sad news. They are releasing a new version, renamed Avenza Maps, and it will be limited to just three user maps loaded at a time. Unless you're willing to bend over and pungle up $30/year for the privilege of generating and using more of your own data. And make no mistake about it, the only thing that extra fee buys you is just that! Your own data. (The "pro" version of the app costs $129/year, now!!!)

Really sad end to what was such a promising product. Never seen an application developer decide to intentionally inflict so much needless trouble on their users. Yes, you can still swap maps in and out at will. But that chews up time and batteries. Plus you loose that long list of maps, with each entry showing how far away and in what direction they are. (Or, better yet, if you're actually "On map" at the time!) So this isn't quite as clearcut as "just swap 'em!" - it's a true loss of functionality.

Why are they doing this? Well, take one look at the new product's Features page, and I bet you can guess! Yep, the first "feature" listed is their own Map Store. Extortion by any other name...

kepPNW wrote:Never seen an application developer decide to intentionally inflict so much needless trouble on their users.

Apple? Microsoft?

Just messsin! I hear ya!

miah66 wrote:

kepPNW wrote:Never seen an application developer decide to intentionally inflict so much needless trouble on their users.

Apple? Microsoft?

Just messsin! I hear ya!

Heh, I had phone apps in mind, but yeah this is on a par with some of the crap Microsoft has pulled.

I have confirmed with mailto:[email protected] that the new app will indeed overwrite the old one, despite the different name, if automatic updating isn't disabled.

Well that's no good. Are there are any comparable apps available from other developers?

kepPNW wrote:I have confirmed with mailto:[email protected] that the new app will indeed overwrite the old one, despite the different name, if automatic updating isn't disabled.

Thanks for the warning. I have downloaded a copy of the installer from http://apps.store.aptoide.com/app/marke ... 0/PDF+Maps for future use.

justpeachy wrote:Well that's no good. Are there are any comparable apps available from other developers?

None that I am aware of, but PDF Maps first rasterizes and caches the PDF anyway, so you could get the same functionality less conveniently by manually converting a PDF to an image and using any map app that supports image overlays.

justpeachy wrote:Well that's no good. Are there are any comparable apps available from other developers?

I'm going to be giving the one from TerraGo a try. I can't really tell (at first glance) if it records tracks, but PDF Maps was a terrible app for that anyway. If you just used it to determine where you were, this might be an alternative worth looking at? It imported a GeoPDF from Caltopo just fine, but is kinda-sorta choking on a GeoPDF that I downloaded from USGS.

Webfoot wrote:

kepPNW wrote:I have confirmed with mailto:[email protected] that the new app will indeed overwrite the old one, despite the different name, if automatic updating isn't disabled.

Thanks for the warning. I have downloaded a copy of the installer from http://apps.store.aptoide.com/app/marke ... 0/PDF+Maps for future use.

This is fabulous! Just went to install PDF Maps on a tablet of mine, and that damned new Avenza Maps installed instead. Quickly wrote a 1-star review of that, uninstalled, and put this on instead. Only caveat is, it required root access to install.

kepPNW wrote:

justpeachy wrote:Well that's no good. Are there are any comparable apps available from other developers?

I'm going to be giving the one from TerraGo a try. I can't really tell (at first glance) if it records tracks, but PDF Maps was a terrible app for that anyway. If you just used it to determine where you were, this might be an alternative worth looking at? It imported a GeoPDF from Caltopo just fine, but is kinda-sorta choking on a GeoPDF that I downloaded from USGS.

Okay, shoot, TerraGo Edge seems to have an even worse limitation... Just one user-generated offline map may be imported at a time? I got the quad map from USGS imported, but that removed the Caltopo map from my list of maps to toggle between. Could be a stupid user-error, but that's what I'm seeing right now...

I was asked (off-line) how to turn off auto-updates for an app. Got this in an email from Avenza...

Avenza wrote:You can choose to continue using the version you currently have, but older versions will no longer be supported going forward.

To turn automatic updates on or off, follow these steps:
(this information was taken from http://gadgets.ndtv.com/apps/features/h ... -81-634685)

1) Open Google Play.

2) Tap the hamburger icon (three horizontal lines) on the top-left.

3) Tap Settings.

4) Tap Auto-update apps.

5) To disable automatic app updates, select Do not auto-update apps.

If you want to instead auto-update apps only when you’re connected to a WiFi network, tap Auto-update apps over Wi-Fi only in the same pop-up.

Android also lets you choose which apps you want to update automatically.

1) To turn on auto-update for any app, go to the app page in the Google Play app.

2) Tap the three vertical dots in the top right.

3) Check Auto-update.

This way, you can disable automatic updates and still keep chosen apps ready with the latest versions.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us again.

So, to just disable auto-updates on PDF Maps, use those last three instructions, but UNCHECK the option.

If you accidentally let an app auto-update and you didn't want it to, there are a number of Web sites that archive the older versions of the apps' APKs, so you could manually revert. E.g.: https://apkpure.com/pdf-maps/com.Avenza

adamschneider wrote:If you accidentally let an app auto-update and you didn't want it to, there are a number of Web sites that archive the older versions of the apps' APKs, so you could manually revert. E.g.: https://apkpure.com/pdf-maps/com.Avenza

Am I correct that this route requires root access to the device? That makes it pretty difficult (okay, probably impossible) for anyone who wants to keep their device in warranty. I was fortunate that my tablet was off-brand and this wasn't a problem, but pretty sure nearly any new carrier-sourced phone is gonna balk.