As I was researching the android platform before buying a HTC Hero, one of the things that really got me excited was the mappping/gps application andnav2. It’s a frontend for openstreetmap, that uses the open routing service to provide turn-by-turn, all for free. The only thing is that it requires is a internet connection for routing, but it’s not really a problem as a route is only a few kilobytes. Maps can be preloaded onto the device also, for situations where one doesn’t have an internet connection available (like when traveling). I used the nice TrekBuddy atlas creater application to fill the device with maps of all of Denmark, London, Berlin and Europe at a decent level.
I was really impressed by the openstreetmap when I was in Corsica earlier this month. I had preloaded maps onto the device before going and it really served us well as the rented car didn’t have a GPS, and my other GPS of course didn’t have maps for Corsica. This was using the excellent maemo mapper and the Nokia N810, but it should be the same with the android.
The user interface of andnav2 could use a lot of cleaning. It’s not very user-friendly, but it will hopefully improve. As the coverage of openstreetmap improves, it will be harder and harder for companies like Tom Tom to ask 750kr for their mapping application like on the iPhone.
Also as the search interface in android marked sucks hard (of the irony Google), one needs to enter andnav2 and not andnav, as that will only show the older version.
Happy mapping!
Edit: The author released a new version, that only works on android > 1.6 (because of TTS), and appears to not really care about older versions of Android. I have approached him multiple times asking for him to fix it, sadly he’s been playing the silent ninja. Just making the old binary available would be fine, but sadly no. Since the source is not available there isn’t much we can do except wait for HTC to release the 2.0.
Edit2: Working version available here: http://people.iola.dk/arj/2009/11/25/andnav2-working-on-hero-again/