Last few months was the time when I’ve been travelling a lot. Nokia N900 was always with me so i’ve had some time to check few applications for travellers. Let’s have a look at CloudGPS.
CloudGPS was presented during MeeGo Conference 2010 as fast and smooth mapping tool. It was rewriten for N900 taking advantage of OpenGL ES, basing on java application. It allows exploring Open Street maps and uses GPS module to show your position. User interface is simple, few UI elements are enough to operate freely, more functions are available by keyboard shortcuts, everything is described in talk.maemo.org CloudGPS thread.
Big words are the first thing, what about reality? I’ve checked it on train, when mobile network was changing GSM cells quite frequently, so transfer wasn’t astonishing. GPS receiver was also a bit lazy in the beginning but it’s not application fault. After everything clicked in it was running very smoothly, constantly showing frame count and exact position and speed even though I was locked inside metal can of a train (viva N900 again ).
I was playing with CloudGPS for quite some time and I was really happy with it, the only thing I wasn’t amused was unavailable search option, but as I read later it’s still to be implemented in later versions. Try it, maybe you will like it too.
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MJ

Summer is great time for travels any way you like, by foot, by train, by your own car. If you take your Nokia N900 with you there are some ways to enrich experiences and be prepared for many different situations.
If you like any kind of trips you should know that it’s good to have a map. Old-fasioned paper maps tend to get older, they’re vulnerable for various terms like rain. N900 offers you Maep application as really good substitute for paper maps. When you launch application you can see simple and intuitive interface, GPS tracking that may save you time for wandering where exactly you are and access to few online maps, depending on what you need. The most popular engine is Google Maps I think, at least I’m using it the most. Alternatives should satisfy everyone, Open Street Map, Virtual Earth with satellite and hybrid view, lightweight Public Transport for drivers and people travelling by train or bus, even OpenCycleMap for those who likes bicycles. Thanks to tracking you can easily find yourself, plan better and store your trip history to share even more experiences with friends or family.
I’ve tested Maep while coming back from my ‘healthy weekend’ and was really satisfied with results, GPRS connection was good enough to smoothly view maps and track my trip by bus. I was amused when I’ve found I’m near place where I’ve spent my vacation 7 years ago (!), it brought back few nice memories, I’m almost sure that most of you can also find such places during own travels.
Maep in few words is really great substitute or paper map and gives more possibilities, even if you know area quite well it’s nice to have such application on your N900, you can always learn something new.
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MJ

Nokia announced, that Ovi Maps with free walk and drive is now available for the Nokia E71 and the E66. I know, that has nothing to do with our beloved N900, but some times ago it was released for the N86 8MP after Ovi Maps Navigation has been available on a small range of devices such as Nokia E72, Nokia N97 mini, the 5800 and the X6 since January.

So I just wonder, where is the version for the N900? As Anssi Vanjoki promised in the end of January it will be available soon. But what means soon? We have Arpil now, and there is no free Navigation for the N900 in sight. Does Nokia have a deal with Sygic? They released their navigation software a few days ago, since 23rd of March, I think. All in all it is really not very expensive, the European maps are available for eur 59,99 in their Online Shop and the USA can be purchased for eur 49,99. Also a Canadian map is already being sold and other regions are “under construction”. But anyway, why should N900 owners pay for something, what Nokia is giving out for free. Only in the case, when we are able to compare both (or more) systems, we can form an opinion which one suites us better (subjective considered) and then “buy or not to buy” the one we´d like to.

I am really waiting to get Ovi Maps for my N900!
- sam | visit our Nokia N900 forum -

As I mentioned in my further post about the Nokia Map Loader, I would test the downloaded maps on the N900 on my road trip only with the GPS functionality. The main reason why, is saving roaming costs being abroad, which can be very high in some countries.
Finally I got home and the test succeeded with almost satisfying results. Mostly I described the functions of Ovi Maps in my post Ovi Maps – Navigation on the N900, so please get further information about how to use the map functionality there.
Although there are some issues with Ovi Maps, like the lack of Turn by Turn, no history, no bookmarks, no rerouting, and so on, it works as it should, for now. (We all hope, that Nokia is releasing the full navigation package for the N900 soon.)

Planning the route without the A-GPS functionality is almost the same routine as normal. You have only to disable the network function in the GPS settings of your phone first. It is then going to ask you if you want to connect to the internet (which are available) and negate this one. Be also sure that the settings for the internet is set to “always ask”. Then set your route and wait for the route calculation. In this mode it will take a little longer for it has no assistance from the mobile network (this is what the name stands for: Assisted Global Position System), but once its calculated you will have your route shown as it used to be with assistance on.

I was guided well and getting no bills from roaming partners in other countries.

- sam | visit our Nokia N900 forum -

It sounds really cool Nokia marketing its N900 flagship with navigation on board. Meantime everone of N900 owners know, that what we realize as navigation is not exactly what Ovi Maps on the N900 offers.
So I tried what the so called “navigation” on the phone is really good for. Having an appointment about 100km away, I started the Ovi Maps from the desktop shortcut. It takes its time to startup, but once on your screen, it has a nice environment, and really easy use UI. Tapping the first letters of my destination, the phone already offers possible options. Just hit the right one to go, adding it to your route, and you’re ready to go. Very simple. Sure you can adjust your settings in many ways, but the default one works in the most cases.
The onboard GPS combined with the mobile assistance position system works very well. I have to say, that I am using an unlimited data package, so the permanent downloading of maps doesn’t cause extra costs in my case. Maps can be downloaded with the Ovi Maps Loader to use Ovi Maps also in offline mode, although it didn’t worked when I tried to. I will give it another try sometimes. There are some issues about, more information can be found in the maemo.org talk section.
So, I was routed exactly to my destination. The only and very only “penalty” I have to give this app, is the missing voice guidance. After Nokia announced the free navigation for “all” GPS phones in January this year, I think almost all of us (especially the N900 users) were very excited. But this was regrettably only true for symbian. The turn by turn navigation for maemo devices will follow, as Nokia promised, I really hope so, but I think we have to wait until maemo 6.
Fact is, that Ovi Maps is a very nice and usefull application in its own way and to find “your way” it is almost as good as normal navigationapps, just without voice.
But don’t forget to plugin the power supply using Ovi Maps. It turned out, that …