And finally, the best gift under the tree – Locus Map 3.21!

Not long ago we teased you about the Christmas giving by the 50% sale of the best outdoor navigation in the World – Locus Map Pro. We promised that it would not be all these holidays. Despite the promises should be fulfilled on the Christmas Day, we would rather fill them now, a few days before the feast. New Locus Map 3.21 is just coming. And what awaits us? There’s a big lot of it, again, but let’s go step by step:

And again the maps!

Ordnance Survey

We’re beginning with the icing on the cake of this year: it’s made of great hiking maps of the largest British cartography publishing house, Ordnance Survey. Their paper alter ego is supplied as Landranger an Explorer series. Landranger in original is in 1:50 000 scale and it’s very suitable for long track cycling, multiple days on a hike, vacations or car tourism.

A bit more detailed Explorer is in 1:25 000 scale and you’ll welcome it on your running workouts, hiking, mountain biking or horseback trips. In such a large scale you’ll miss no path.

We in Locus team have prepared more than 400 map packages with the same mapsheet layout as Explorer maps, containing also Landranger and a few more overview zooms. Maps can be purchased in our Locus Store and used offline without internet connection.

IGN Belgium

The mosaic of the European countries coverage by premium maps has been enriched also by Belgian Institut Geographique National and its accurate and detailed topographic maps. After purchasing monthly or annual subscription the maps are available both for online viewing and for unlimited downloading of any area of Belgium for offline use.

U.S. National parks by NeoTreks

Awesome trail maps by NeoTreks, known also as AccuTerra maps, have been available in Locus since October 2016. We wrote about them when we were releasing the version 3.19. Until now the maps were available in so called free selection mode. It means you defined the map crop yourself. Now, for your better comfort, we’ve prepared 89 ready-made packages with maps of National parks and other recreational areas (national recreation areas, rivers, shores and preserves) in the United States. And if you would want more, we’ll broaden the offer even more.

I share, you share, we share

Sharing is a mantra of today. Everything is shared, beginning with music, videos, funny gifs, cookies recipes, newborn babies photos to GPS location. And that’s our domain. There are loads of sharing options, you know them from your smart mobile phone. Locus offers even more, and on the top, all in a new design and under one button:

Quick share of my current location

Tap the first item and all icons of your installed sharing apps appear. Locus can send a message through them, containing free Geohash.org link, displaying your location in several services at once, among others Google Maps, OpenStreet maps or Geocaching map:

Text message

This option can share location of your map cursor and of course also your location if it’s the same (i.e. you have GPS fix). It offers more options of the text editing, it inserts your address and coords automatically. You can add your altitude, direct link to Google Maps or your GPS accuracy.

Facebook

You know well, sharing belongs to Facebook from the core of its definition. Locus can enhance the Facebook post by your address and a map and you can attach also description. We’ve also improved the track sharing:

What3words

Have you ever heard of What3words? If not, you’ll hear soon. It’s the newest coordinate system in the World, utilizing a network of 3×3 m squares. Each square is defined by three words and the network covers the whole World. Any place on Earth, therefore, has its own simple three-word address. And not only in English. Also Arabian, Russian or Mongolian and others are available. It’s simple, genial and very quickly growing system and we couldn’t stay behind with its implementation.

Screen sharing

You know this from before. Locus removes all buttons from your map screen and creates an image of it that you can send anywhere by mail, via messenger, Twitter or whatever sharing you’ve got installed on your mobile.

Sharing a KMZ file

This is  a bit geeky stuff. All you can see on your display, i.e. map, points, tracks, caches, all of it is packed in a file with KMZ suffix and can be shared. KMZ files can be visualized in other map tools, for instance in Google Earth.

Obligatory question – and that’s it?

And an obligatory answer follows, of course not. The list of changes, modifications, improvements and fixes takes quite a lot of lines today.   Anyway, have a look yourself in Menu > About app. Just at random – a completely new 3D skyplot with satellites above your head:

Plus option to import GPSies.com routes directly to your own route folders and many minor things.

And finally, find a Christmas surprise in Locus and win 1000 LoCoins!

At midnight CET from 24th to 25th of December a Christmas surprise activates in Locus. Who is the first to find it, takes a picture of it (by screeenshot or a camera) and sends the picture to pr@asamm.com, wins 1000 LoCoins! That’s  quite a bundle of maps under the tree isn’t it?

The whole Locus team wishes you all beautiful and merry Christmas amongst your most beloved ones. And if we don’t see each other then because we’ll be also having rest during the Holidays, we wish you also a happy New year 2017!