Any interest in turn-by-turn navigation on Sailfish OS? (currently US only)

Applications QML
1

Our North American operations have the option of using a Sailfish-native turn-by-turn car navigation app which, after being called a “pocket heater” and “Sir Crashalot” in the past, now, in my opinion, does quite a good job.

Currently, the available maps are limited to a few US states, and I’m not willing to incur the required +$2000 server hardware upgrade to extend the map coverage without a valid reason. However, if there is enough interest, this may happen in the future, despite people in the US trying to convince me that Europeans don’t drive cars and have to carry their groceries home on their backs. :laughing:

image
image1920×897 171 KB

14 Likes
2

What problem does it solve that can’t be solved by, I don’t know, collaborating with Pure Maps?

1 Like
3

Actually I don’t drive cars and do carry my groceries on my back. But to be fair the supermarket is closer than a potential parking lot

6 Likes
4

PureMaps has a much broader scope. This one focuses on one job only: car navigation, nothing more and nothing less. So it is more of a replacement for HERE Maps than for PureMaps.

1 Like
5

Interesting question, I am not sure if I get all the details:

So you

  1. already have SailfishOS software that does car navigation
  2. it is used by your “operations” people and they stopped complaining too much lately
  3. you manage your own maps server for this. And it costs to add more maps (or clients) - not sure what hardware.

Do we want a car driving app? Sure, why not! But before this, I have additional curiosities:

A. What are the pocket heater devices? C2s? anything else?
B. What is the source of the map data?
and finally:
C. What happens if you are unable to maintain the server / up to date, online etc. and you decide to pull the plug.
D. For the cost options, if this is already based on paying some commercial / paying solution, are you planning /willing / able to collect some small amounts (like, monthly small fee etc) to keep the lights on?
E. Client will be OSS?

2 Likes
6

Don’t bother. It’s a waste of time.

Sailfish has too many quality apps already, and people have so much choice, they don’t have to use AAS for basic tasks. :grin:

1 Like
7

A: Xperia 10 devices of various vintages.
B: Display data comes from OpenStreetMap. Routing data comes from OSM plus various commercial APIs.
C: People can build their own. The API uses JSON. Map display is based on Mapbox GL (@rinigus).
D: Yes, some commercial solutions are involved. As long as we stay within the limits, it’s fine. Collecting money would be a tax nightmare. I could perhaps spin something off and collect donations if it gets out of hand.
E: Yes.

3 Likes
8

Well… we have a pretty capable navigation software already that doesn’t require AAS. If Pure Maps’ default view is too feature-rich, a scaled-down sidekick app that uses the same backend functionality (like OSM Scout Server) would imo be the most sensible approach (like Maps and Drive on the N9 back in the days).

9

You could use https://openfreemap.org/ for tiles in the free version (or add an option for offline tiles from scout server), can’t believe routing would be expensive with a few dozen sfos users in US

10

I believe most people who use a map app are probably going somewhere with a vehicle. At least in Germany that could be car, motorcycle, bicycle, scooter, and you would still use the same road with turn by turn navigation in most cases.

So unless we are talking about walking and using public transport, I believe turn by turn is heavily within pure maps scope or any other navigation app.
Unless there was an announcement stating otherwise ofc and I’m not aware of.

Just my 2c and mostly because you said “Europeans”, so it makes me think that you don’t know much about the countries within that continent.

11

A car navigation app? Is it like the Drive app from the Symbian days? Sorry, but haven’t modern map apps moved past this years ago, or is this thing more like the CarPlay feature on my iPhone?

1 Like
12

I can’t believe that when somebody offers a native SailfishOS car navigation app people turn it down. What did I miss?

8 Likes
13

That Pure maps exists and this app is a standalone turn by turn navigation only in US.

14

That we have good general navigation apps that cover car usage as well, perhaps?

15

So are we only allowed to have one app?

This was for now for some parts of the US but maybe wider in the future. It’s open source so you can even fork it.

2 Likes
16

No, anyone can do whatever they want.
You can fork it to make another app for turn by turn in cuba in the future as an example.

17

I remember in the og Jolla Phone days when there was native HERE maps UI, so I was recently thinking if Jolla could opensource the UI as it was nice simple app that could be used (with some other backend).

when it comes to this app, it would be really welcome addition to have a proper (turn-by-turn) car navigation focused app. The UI/UX seems to be more user-friendly and not “designed by engineer” which is nice.

Pure maps is okay/usable for basic navigation not really turn-by-turn which cars need, also it screams “designed by engineer”, because of it I wouldn’t recommend it to a normal mainstream users

4 Likes
18

Could this mapping app or the OG Jolla app be modified to allow users to use their own Here.com API key in order to get live traffic information?

19

Thanks for the answers.

So yes then: I do want more apps, so it would be a welcome addition, even if other apps exists.

4 Likes
20

at least the og app could be modified so people could use their own personal HERE API key, the reason why the app got removed was because of the (API) licensing agreements after Nokia sold HERE, not a technical reason.

1 Like