Anquet launches new family of nav apps and Anquet Cloud

Digital mapping company Anquet has announced Outdoor Map Navigator for PC, the first in a new family of mapping and navigation applications for PC, Android and iPhone. Also launched is Anquet Cloud, a free cloud service built into the Outdoor Map Navigator apps which lets users synchronise maps and route files across desktop and mobile devices.

"The combination of Outdoor Map Navigator and Anquet Cloud is a major breakthrough in outdoor navigation technology," according to the company which was established in 2001 specifically to provide digital maps and navigation software for outdoor enthusiasts. 

"In the past, plotting a route on a PC and then following it on real OS maps on a smartphone was always a bit too fiddly and technical for many. Anquet’s new technology promises to make it far simpler, which is certain to appeal to the vast majority of everyday walkers, climbers and cyclists," they claim.

Among other specialist options, Anquet offer downloadable maps from the Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 series that road cyclists like as well as the 1:25,000 scale with more detail preferred by walkers and mountain bikers. 

"We set out to build the next generation of mapping and navigation software for outdoors people," says Graham Hughes, Anquet's Managing Director.  "We knew it had to work on PCs, smartphones and tablets and we knew it had to be very capable but easy to use at the same time. Then we thought how great it would be if you could log in on any device and have your library of maps and routes immediately available. The answer was to build a new family of apps for PC, iPhone and Android which access a personal maps and routes library in ‘the cloud’. Users could then connect to the cloud through their apps, synchronise their maps and routes and take off anywhere they fancied."

The new software, which as the name suggests is for Windows-based  PCs but not Macs unless they're running the 'Parallels' environment, is available now and shares much of its functionality with the "long-standing and hugely popular" Anquet v06 but with the core technology, Anquet claim, "completely re-engineered to make it much faster and smoother. It uses a modern ribbon-style interface which most readers will be familiar with from Microsoft Office 2010 and, of course, it synchronises with Anquet Cloud."

There is a free version of the software, "ideal for most people" and an optional upgrade to a Pro version for £40 which includes advanced extra features such as 3D mapping , A3 printing and GPS connectivity.

Outdoor Map Navigator for Android and iPhone are in beta testing now with expected launch later in the spring. Anquet say they've resisted the temptation to bloat the apps with rarely used features, instead devoting all their energy into making sure the apps are fast, extremely solid and very easy to use. Like the PC app, the Android and iPhone apps have Anquet Cloud built in so maps and routes synchronise across devices at the click of a button.

"Right from the start, the design ethos was to make things as simple as possible without compromising functionality. We wanted apps that did everything they needed to do but as simply as possible," says Graham Hughes, Managing Director

Details: anquet.com