DougPeterson

I have been using Locus Map Pro for geocaching for about nine years now. Having off line maps was the original draw back when I had a 200MB data plan. Given a focus on OpenStreetMap for offline maps that also got me into doing mapping on OSM, which I use Locus Maps for recording updates as well. I make my own maps from OSM data for use with Locus Maps. I customize what will show up in the map in the creation of the map as well as customize the display of the map in Locus Maps.

So will there be a time that regular updates are made, even once or twice a year? Updates I have made from at least a year ago have yet to show up. I didn't go back further to figure out when the last update was made.

It has been at least a year since any updates have been made. That was as far back as I checked in my change history on OpenStreetMap. It is disappointing that all the work people do, including myself, to help improve the map for geocaching does not get made use of on a more timely basis. I make my own maps so at least I get the benefit. Online at least people can switch to the base OSM map, if they know to do that. With the GC app you don't have that choice.

I make my own maps using PBF files downloaded from Geofabrik then processed by Osmosis and MapWriter.

This might be directed to someone at GC.com. I was wondering when a regular schedule of data updates would start for the Geocaching OSM map. When it first came on line I checked to see how current the data was. It looked to be about four months old. This was based on checking to see if updates I had made were there. I checked today going back about four months and it does not look like updates have occurred yet. User contributions are really the point of OSM. A substantial portion of the updates I make to OSM are geocaching related so I would like to see broader benefit for them.

I had been wondering myself about being able to change to OSM and happened to stumble across this thread. It was helpful. I (and others) have been mapping trails in local parks where caches are located and uploadign to OSM. I have a follow-on question. It appears that the default is Mapquest OSM. I would prefer OpenStreetMap Default. Is there any way to change this default selection so I do not have to change it each time. Thanks.

I have been focused on using free apps so far. I have used GeoBeagle mostly until I started switching to Locus. I have used the other non-GC application mentioned in the thread but stopped. What I have tried checking when I look at an app is whether it is using an authorized method of communicating with GC.com. [This is not an attempt to start a discussion or argument about the other application.] From looking at some information about Locus it looks like the app uses the GS api for finding caches nearby. GeoBeagle's current cache sync behavior has been real frustrating. I keep having to sync the caches as I move from one location to another. Sometimes it takes multiple attempts for a cache to become visible, even one that has been synced many times before. This can be a couple of minutes for each pass. That behavior caused me to start looking at Locus. With the geocaching add-on, it has pretty much all the same capability as GeoBeagle plus the benefit of off-line maps. This is really helping with my limited data plan. The cache management is different and I am having to do a little more manual work but it isn't that much more work than I had to do with an earlier version of GeoBeagle.

I typically use GPS Essentials for adding waypoints instead of GeoBeagle. GeoBeagle has the slightly annoying behavior of requiring the GPS to be turned on to add a waypoint. The implication here would be that it is focused more on capturing a waypoint than adding a new one. GPS Essentials will function either way, entering a blank one or capturing the current one. It also lets you put in an offset or projection. If you have GPS Status installed you can edit a target coordinate in radar mode. It is a bit awkward but can serve in a pinch. One of the interesting things about Locus is that you can add a waypoint based on the center of the map being viewed.