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Using trail map type consumes lot of mobile data


Mosselen

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When I use the trail map type (not using offline lists) it looks like every time the screen is refreshed, the map tiles are downloaded over and over again. This takes a lot of mobile data.

The app should cache the tiles local. The app should use a certain amount of storage to cache the tile and when full, should automatically remove the longest not used tiles.

I have use other mapping apps, which worked that way, and they use a reasonable small amount of data.

 

For now I have forbidden the app to use mobile data, to prevent accidentaly high data consumption. But the downside is that I can't search for caches, send logs, etc, when I am on the field.

 

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Wow, I never noticed this issue before. I just did some testing and it seems to confirm that the app doesn't cache the tiles at all. I scrolled around a bunch, but the storage being used by the app barely changed. Also, if I panned away from one area and then immediately panned back, you could see it was having to re-download the tiles because there was the empty grid background visible. This must be massively hard on the map servers. Caching the tiles would not only improve performance for the app user, but it would also vastly decrease the amount of data being served up by the map server and therefore improve performance and reduce costs. Wins all around.

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I actually find this the most annoying thing about the geocaching app. It just keeps downloading the map tiles over and over again. It does not just eat (useless) data, it also drains the battery really bad and makes the app really slow.

I do not like the setup at all that offline maps only work with downloaded lists. Why not just download an offline map for a selected region/state/country (similar for example like the app maps.me).

Another thing that I dislike about the app is that it tries to download 1000 caches every time. Although most of the time I just want to see some nearby caches. It would make much more sense to just download the caches that fit in the map on the screen. Again the app is not data efficient at all.

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Try Cachly.  My iOS-using friends seem to like it.  A quick glance at the website http://www.cach.ly/ shows me they use offline vector maps, which is an incredibly efficient way to store maps, compared to fetching tiles as needed.

 

Vector maps are the norm for GPS units.  My favourite caching app in the Android world uses them as well, which makes me happy.  Just download the map in advance (Alberta, Germany, wherever, a big chunk), then go caching in Airplane Mode to save battery.

 

PS, https://www.openandromaps.org/en offers excellent offline topo maps.  They might be compatible with Cachly.  They're what I use in my Android app.  The data source is same as the Groundspeak Trails map (=OSM), but might be updated more often.

 

Edited by Viajero Perdido
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On ‎10‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 11:02 AM, Viajero Perdido said:

Try Cachly.  My iOS-using friends seem to like it.  A quick glance at the website http://www.cach.ly/ shows me they use offline vector maps, which is an incredibly efficient way to store maps, compared to fetching tiles as needed.

 

That would be pretty cool!  I previously tried offline maps in Cachly, looked fine before I left, and the tiles weren't there upon arrival.  Very disappointing.  I never figured out how to load an offline map in a way that I'd know for sure that portion of the map would still be there once I got to GZ.  Now it seems you may load an entire state, for example.

 

I can't tell if you can load custom map files.  But there's a conversation about new maps in an upcoming version.

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On 9/19/2018 at 2:36 PM, Mosselen said:

When I use the trail map type (not using offline lists) it looks like every time the screen is refreshed, the map tiles are downloaded over and over again. This takes a lot of mobile data.

The app should cache the tiles local. The app should use a certain amount of storage to cache the tile and when full, should automatically remove the longest not used tiles.

I have use other mapping apps, which worked that way, and they use a reasonable small amount of data.

 

For now I have forbidden the app to use mobile data, to prevent accidentaly high data consumption. But the downside is that I can't search for caches, send logs, etc, when I am on the field.

 

You're not kidding. I recently had to use the trail map and it depleted my battery so fast!

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