BlackBerry® PlayBook™

[godot2011]

---

JSanders wrote:

With OSMAND, how does one set the app to use online maps rather than downloaded?

---

Try Settings - Navigation - Navigation Service to pick on-line or offline navigation. I use offline maps only since I have no BlackBerry or data plan. The OpenStreet Maps are quite good. 

I also tinker with Noia Maps for BlackBerry - available on App World. 

[godot2011]

---

sappy3937 wrote:

Yes. You are right that the route calculation algorithm is not perfect. As I am from calcutta, India what i do is , i make my route plan before the journey starts. I ask some body for the important land marks then i follow my the map according to my current position. And one more thing, for India the OSMAND offline vector map is not very rich. So i use google map. On the move i connect my playbook to my nokia asha 311, akd use the mobile data internet connection through internet tethering. It works good. And once you have internet in PB on move you may use browser based google map also sometime for unknown route mapping.

By the way, isnt there any straight forward way to keep the gps rcvr active while PB is in standby mode? Or we make standby as "never"?? I guess a small patch update can fix that.Why RIM is ignoring this part? They already had released almost 3-4 update after 2.0 OS. :-(

---

Two points,

1. If you have a Nokia phone try their free Nokia Maps. 

2. RIM as all phone and tablet device manufacturers are very concerned about minimizing power consumption. So when you are complaining about sleep mode remember that. Nokia solved this problem brilliantly for Nokia Maps. If you are on your battery the phone shuts off the display when you are "just following the road". The display will come to life when there is time for a new instruction from the GPS. However, if your phone is plugged in the display never goes to sleep. 

I would not be surprised if this mode of operation is lisenced by Nokia. These days so is the color black. In any case I bought a "magnatic" charger for my PlayBook and I used it with a 12V to 120-240V inverter in my car. I like this solution because it does not use the rather fragile micro USB port of the PlayBook AND it does not stick out as the standard charger does from the body of the PlayBook. Unfortunately this does not solve the lack of "NEVER" option to shut the screen off while not on battery. 

Happy new Year to you.

[madasaman]

I downloaded Telmap Navigator on my 9300 works fine and has voice instructions. Not sure about linking it via bridge to your playbook. I've just bought one and am still getting my head around it.

[JSanders Resident Expert]

Thanks, we're talking about GPS navigation ON the PlayBook.

An app of the same on your 9300 will be bridged to the PlayBook.

[sappy3937]

Hello friends,

Hope you all are doing well. Since last 2 days i was thinking of sharing my thoughts and experience on the GPS with mu Blackeberry Playbook. 

Coming very straight forward..

Currently i am using OSMAND and Magellan Compass. The advantage of Magellan compass is it prevents playbook from going standby while active in front. Thats really cooo and practical when using GPS on the go. Having said that, i must say magellan compass is incomplete even with V4.1. Does have that fludity which is required in gps apps. Lags a lot. Does not prperly cache the tiles. Once you close the application and reopen it it again goes online to fetch the map data. I am disappointed. I really dont know how they got 4.5 rating upon 5. If there 'direction to the movement' available? I could not find.

On the other hand OSMAND is very good except one feature - 'prevent playbook from stadby'. Damnnnnnn.. Missing of only one feature lead me to buy Magellan compass which disappointed me. And also the routing algorithm of osmand needs improvement. But otherwise its awesome. Fast, fluid. Useful, lots of features are there.

Last but not the least i must say, playbook is awesome device. :-) . I got addicted on the GPS part. Already discovered lots of nice place to visit with the help of GPS only. I am loving it.

[godot2011]

I agree.  There are a number of decent GPS apps one can use on the PlayBook but I am only aware of two, Osmond and the Navigator which are truly off line capable, allowing to download maps by state/county, not requiring any on line connections. OSMAND in many ways seem to bee a 'clone' of Navigator. I prefer Osmand, it has a cleaner, better user interface. As said above both has problems with the algorithms calculating routes. By the way it is a good idea to use all GPS systems with map - for a plan B. 

Some semi offline GPS you can also play with. Try Nokia Map on the Web. It allows to download maps tiles into the PlayBook.  There is also a "GPS maps using Nokia Maps", available on BlackBerry World. Strange eh? It promises map downloads 'in the future.  I have the paid ($1.99) version. Functionality wise it is not even close to Nokia Maps on my Nokia phone.  Off line GPS is very important to me. Yes, I will get BB10 - as soon as they have this feature. There was in the news a while back that TomTom was going to license their GPS to RIM (and Apple!). I wonder where that agreement went. 

[sappy3937]

Recently, I did securoty wipe on my playbook as some apps were not working, after rebooting i directly updated to the Latest Update the RIM has recently pushed. I installed OSMAND 0.8.3 from Blackberry App World (name changed) and belive me or not, my Playbook's GPS is catching GPS signal within minitues. Wowww!! I found one option in OSMAND called "Monitoring Services" - there you can set the timing interval based on which the app will wake up GPS chip. I tested it, leaving my playbook in home keeping OSMAND open (Sreen light went off after 5mins as usual) i went to gym, when i came back it immediately (5-10 Secs) catches the GPS signal which indicates it was holding that GPS signal even it went sleep mode. 

Requesting you all to share your recent experience with the GPS after updating the OS.