[Talk-us] Android Phone App that Uses Garmin Format -- Was Whole-US Garmin Map update - 2015-09-30

[Greg Troxel]

Greg Morgan <dr.kludge.gm at gmail.com> writes:

> I think my Garmin GPS finally died.  Has anyone had experience with or
> can recommend an Android app that uses the Garmin file format?  I seem
> to be in areas where the data roaming does not shine.  It would be
> nice to toss one of these US Garmin files on the SD card and still be
> able to navigate.  The primary concern is navigation so the other
> editing features and such are not as great of a concern.

osmand basically does what you want, I think.  Vector map data on the
device, no data usage (except to get new bits when connnected of
course), and it can do routing on-device, for car/bike/ped.  You can
customize the rendering.  Not garmin format, and mkgmap is out of the
loop, but there is a osm->osmand converter, and the file format is much
closer to native osm than Garmin format.

You can easily have large chunks of the US on the device. I have 16
states, DC, and three provinces.ca, all in 3.5G.  As example sizes,
California is 558M, Massachusetts 190M and RI 14M.  Processed maps are
available for pretty much everywhere.

osmand also can read/write map notes, take photos/audio, etc.   But it's
really a navigation program with some mapper-focused features, not a
mapping program.

You do need a relatively beefy device.  But anything built from 2012 on
is probably ok.  A 2013 model Nexus 7 runs osmand without issues.
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