5 ms·

This looks good. I will check it out this afternoon. I can see several use cases for it. The best ever mapping software for personal use was Microsoft's Street

This looks good. I will check it out this afternoon. I can see several use cases for it. The best ever mapping software for personal use was Microsoft's Streets and Trips. buy a license and use it forever. Too bad they killed it off so you no longer can get updated roads and maps. It had every feature that one could need to facilitate navigation. I keep an old laptop with WinXP around so I can do trip planning even today. It made the whole method of defining individual legs of a trip simple so that one could adjust things on the fly if you made it to one destination and discovered a lot of other interesting things to do or see. You could brainstorm different side trips in a few minutes. You could even print point to point maps. I love that software. I really love any software that I can buy for one price and use forever. I am not a SaaS fan though that is where everyone is going. Sad.

NikolaNovak 4y ago
It's astonishing that there were things which existed decades ago with only inferior substitutes today. Ms Streets and Trips had functionality google maps doesn't seem to aspire to; and same of course goes for Encarta. It seems a no brainer something like that shoild exist for tablets - but it doesn't. The myriad data and graphs you could overlay and chart on maps was wonderful.
- asdff 4y ago
  This is the natural product of having these walled off gardens. You can't just build a simpler and better product yourself. There would be a dozen clones of Streets and Trips on github for iPad if only you'd be able to run unsigned code on the device you purchased yourself. It's like, we could be in this amazing emergent world of open source and constantly iterating software with these handheld devices, but we decided instead to chain an anchor to it and throw it overboard with how locked down they are. Don't these companies want better engineers long term? That starts with letting 10 year olds write scripts on their ipad without any training wheels attached or patronizing abstractions. Let people tinker.
  - MichaelZuo 4y ago
    Why cant you take $100 in donations to make an apple developer account and throw it on the app store?
    - labster 4y ago
      That’s a ridiculous amount of friction for a kid who wants to mess around with programming on a phone. With $100 they could, I don’t know, pay to see a doctor or get a tank of gas, or throw a party. Immediate needs like that come first to teenagers who don’t know what to do with their life yet. Apple is limiting the next generation of hires to keep up the walls today.
      - napoleond 4y ago
        I took the trouble of logging in to HN to call bullshit on this whole thread. The reason these teenagers aren’t building standalone apps is generally because they know that web apps are the future. Moreover, there are dozens of new travel planning startups every year (YC regularly funds them!) and they seem to discover the same thing that Microsoft did—the real reason they stopped updating this magical app—which is that everybody wants better travel apps but nobody wants to pay for it. I’m sure someone will crack the code someday and I’m glad they will keep trying, but I refuse to accept the premise that $100 Apple developer accounts are their primary impediment.
        labster 4y ago
        You know who else said web apps are the future? Steve Jobs when he launched the iPhone.
        paganel 4y ago
        $100 is $100, you seem to comment from a position of privilege. When I learned programming, in my early 20s, that was close to my monthly salary. Granted I've been a paid programmer for more than 15 years now and I make more than that, but, even so, seeing as app development is not what brings me money it looks like a waste to me to throw $100 at something each year so that I'd have the privilege of running my code on a piece of hardware I already own. And let's say that maybe I'm a cheap bastard, but the reality remains that $100 is still a lot of money for a lot of young people around the world who have just gotten into programming.
- jhgb 4y ago
  > Ms Streets and Trips had functionality google maps doesn't seem to aspire to Is there a list of that functionality somewhere?
koenigdavidmj 4y ago
Furkot.com should get you a lot of what you want here, except obviously not offline.
guessbest 4y ago
I used to use the Delorme 2007-9 maps application with a windows xp tablet pc (2005) and it compared favorably to MS Streets. https://www.amazon.com/Delorme-Street-Atlas-2008-Version/dp/B000PIFU8E https://www.amazon.com/Delorme-Street-Atlas-2008-Version/dp/... I still have the tablet pc, but don't have a usb gps that works with it unfortunately.
RyJones 4y ago
I worked on S&T years ago - thanks!
- doodlebugging 4y ago
  It has made such a huge difference in how we planned and managed trips with the kids. I would always plan a general route around a specific set of activities that we booked in advance. I knew when I needed to arrive at a specific location and in general, how long it would occupy us. A typical trip would revolve around a main activity like rafting a river for a few days, I would work in opportunities to visit a few national parks where the kids could build their Junior Ranger badge collections, and leave opportunities for adding local activities that may not be obvious up front. We mapped hotels and campgrounds, nearby attractions, etc. and then I filled in gaps so that we didn't spend the entire day traveling with no fun stuff on the agenda. I was always able to use the functionality to get an accurate idea about distances per day, time spent traveling per day, fuel costs per day, etc. We picked restaurants using online searches so that we could locate great food options and figure out whether we would pass close enough to drop in and eat well without breaking our schedule. Once we made it to a stop, and time could be allocated to every stop in advance, planned to the minute(!), we would review our future plans and evaluate whether we could or should change anything including the route, accommodations, etc. I would investigate any ideas that you normally find on hotel or campground brochures, any highway local interest signs, etc and see whether we could detour if they weren't already on the map. I would lay out all the new options and, with the wife and kids, we would take a vote on how to proceed. I could modify all the plans right there on the laptop dump the maps to a USB drive, and print the new maps on the hotel printer or at Kinkos so that we would have up-to-date plans at hand every morning. We took many multi-state trips circling across the US. They were precision planned and simple for anyone to follow so that my wife and I could switch from driver to navigator as needed. After it was all cancelled and new maps and highway info was not available we would use online maps to find new addresses and then locate that spot in S&T and place a marker in S&T and navigate to that marker. That's how we play it now. I am so glad that you responded since I wanted someone to know that they did excellent work and that at least one of us appreciates all the thought and effort that went into it. And we still use it in planning road trips. Kudos to you and your colleagues. I use ESRI-ArcGIS, QGIS, and have used GRASS. You all produced such a user-friendly, feature-packed, useful product with a gentle learning curve so that a casual user could get what they need from standard, easy to understand menu selections and you made it affordable. It truly is and was a great product and I have been using computers since the DOS wars on X86 hardware and the days of the original Mac. Some software I have used I always hoped never to need to use again after the first time. I know with S&T that the task is easy because talented people put some thought into a list of useful features and then executed the coding to the point where annoyances were absent and roadblocks existed only where the latest highway update said they existed. Thanks! My wife and I have really enjoyed using that software. It is a masterpiece.
doodlebugging 4y ago
Replying to my own post since I said that I would check it out this afternoon. I read through the website, checked open job listings (I love maps and maybe, just maybe...), and finally found at the bottom of the page the button giving the opportunity to Try Felt Free. To get there I had to read the blog post - which gives the vibe that it is an advertisement, and then read everything on the About page. That is not where I expected to find a free trial opportunity. Regardless, I clicked that button for the "Free" trial. I was asked to provide an email address or login through Google since the Free link takes you straight to the SignUp dialog. It isn't free if you have to give something in return so I chose to take a pass on it today. Good luck to the founders and to the team. I am probably not a customer since it is a subscription service and I avoid them as much as possible in today's world.

NikolaNovak 4y ago

It's astonishing that there were things which existed decades ago with only inferior substitutes today. Ms Streets and Trips had functionality google maps doesn't seem to aspire to; and same of course goes for Encarta. It seems a no brainer something like that shoild exist for tablets - but it doesn't. The myriad data and graphs you could overlay and chart on maps was wonderful.

asdff 4y ago
This is the natural product of having these walled off gardens. You can't just build a simpler and better product yourself. There would be a dozen clones of Streets and Trips on github for iPad if only you'd be able to run unsigned code on the device you purchased yourself. It's like, we could be in this amazing emergent world of open source and constantly iterating software with these handheld devices, but we decided instead to chain an anchor to it and throw it overboard with how locked down they are. Don't these companies want better engineers long term? That starts with letting 10 year olds write scripts on their ipad without any training wheels attached or patronizing abstractions. Let people tinker.
- MichaelZuo 4y ago
  Why cant you take $100 in donations to make an apple developer account and throw it on the app store?
  - labster 4y ago
    That’s a ridiculous amount of friction for a kid who wants to mess around with programming on a phone. With $100 they could, I don’t know, pay to see a doctor or get a tank of gas, or throw a party. Immediate needs like that come first to teenagers who don’t know what to do with their life yet. Apple is limiting the next generation of hires to keep up the walls today.
    - napoleond 4y ago
      I took the trouble of logging in to HN to call bullshit on this whole thread. The reason these teenagers aren’t building standalone apps is generally because they know that web apps are the future. Moreover, there are dozens of new travel planning startups every year (YC regularly funds them!) and they seem to discover the same thing that Microsoft did—the real reason they stopped updating this magical app—which is that everybody wants better travel apps but nobody wants to pay for it. I’m sure someone will crack the code someday and I’m glad they will keep trying, but I refuse to accept the premise that $100 Apple developer accounts are their primary impediment.
      - labster 4y ago
        You know who else said web apps are the future? Steve Jobs when he launched the iPhone.
      - paganel 4y ago
        $100 is $100, you seem to comment from a position of privilege. When I learned programming, in my early 20s, that was close to my monthly salary. Granted I've been a paid programmer for more than 15 years now and I make more than that, but, even so, seeing as app development is not what brings me money it looks like a waste to me to throw $100 at something each year so that I'd have the privilege of running my code on a piece of hardware I already own. And let's say that maybe I'm a cheap bastard, but the reality remains that $100 is still a lot of money for a lot of young people around the world who have just gotten into programming.
jhgb 4y ago
> Ms Streets and Trips had functionality google maps doesn't seem to aspire to Is there a list of that functionality somewhere?

koenigdavidmj 4y ago

Furkot.com should get you a lot of what you want here, except obviously not offline.

guessbest 4y ago

I used to use the Delorme 2007-9 maps application with a windows xp tablet pc (2005) and it compared favorably to MS Streets. https://www.amazon.com/Delorme-Street-Atlas-2008-Version/dp/B000PIFU8E https://www.amazon.com/Delorme-Street-Atlas-2008-Version/dp/... I still have the tablet pc, but don't have a usb gps that works with it unfortunately.

RyJones 4y ago

I worked on S&T years ago - thanks!

doodlebugging 4y ago
It has made such a huge difference in how we planned and managed trips with the kids. I would always plan a general route around a specific set of activities that we booked in advance. I knew when I needed to arrive at a specific location and in general, how long it would occupy us. A typical trip would revolve around a main activity like rafting a river for a few days, I would work in opportunities to visit a few national parks where the kids could build their Junior Ranger badge collections, and leave opportunities for adding local activities that may not be obvious up front. We mapped hotels and campgrounds, nearby attractions, etc. and then I filled in gaps so that we didn't spend the entire day traveling with no fun stuff on the agenda. I was always able to use the functionality to get an accurate idea about distances per day, time spent traveling per day, fuel costs per day, etc. We picked restaurants using online searches so that we could locate great food options and figure out whether we would pass close enough to drop in and eat well without breaking our schedule. Once we made it to a stop, and time could be allocated to every stop in advance, planned to the minute(!), we would review our future plans and evaluate whether we could or should change anything including the route, accommodations, etc. I would investigate any ideas that you normally find on hotel or campground brochures, any highway local interest signs, etc and see whether we could detour if they weren't already on the map. I would lay out all the new options and, with the wife and kids, we would take a vote on how to proceed. I could modify all the plans right there on the laptop dump the maps to a USB drive, and print the new maps on the hotel printer or at Kinkos so that we would have up-to-date plans at hand every morning. We took many multi-state trips circling across the US. They were precision planned and simple for anyone to follow so that my wife and I could switch from driver to navigator as needed. After it was all cancelled and new maps and highway info was not available we would use online maps to find new addresses and then locate that spot in S&T and place a marker in S&T and navigate to that marker. That's how we play it now. I am so glad that you responded since I wanted someone to know that they did excellent work and that at least one of us appreciates all the thought and effort that went into it. And we still use it in planning road trips. Kudos to you and your colleagues. I use ESRI-ArcGIS, QGIS, and have used GRASS. You all produced such a user-friendly, feature-packed, useful product with a gentle learning curve so that a casual user could get what they need from standard, easy to understand menu selections and you made it affordable. It truly is and was a great product and I have been using computers since the DOS wars on X86 hardware and the days of the original Mac. Some software I have used I always hoped never to need to use again after the first time. I know with S&T that the task is easy because talented people put some thought into a list of useful features and then executed the coding to the point where annoyances were absent and roadblocks existed only where the latest highway update said they existed. Thanks! My wife and I have really enjoyed using that software. It is a masterpiece.

doodlebugging 4y ago

Replying to my own post since I said that I would check it out this afternoon. I read through the website, checked open job listings (I love maps and maybe, just maybe...), and finally found at the bottom of the page the button giving the opportunity to Try Felt Free. To get there I had to read the blog post - which gives the vibe that it is an advertisement, and then read everything on the About page. That is not where I expected to find a free trial opportunity. Regardless, I clicked that button for the "Free" trial. I was asked to provide an email address or login through Google since the Free link takes you straight to the SignUp dialog. It isn't free if you have to give something in return so I chose to take a pass on it today. Good luck to the founders and to the team. I am probably not a customer since it is a subscription service and I avoid them as much as possible in today's world.