If you’re planning a cycling route you need high-quality maps, and Ordnance Survey has just released its most detailed mapping app yet, which is freely available on iOS and Android smartphones.
Called OS Maps, the new mapping app is aimed at cyclists (as well as walkers, runners, mountaineers and outdoor adventurers) and is available through a website and smartphone app. The app comes preloaded with 500,000 routes.
The app is free to use, but a subscription service unlocks a suite of extra features. What extra features you ask? You can access 607 Explorer and Landranger digital maps, and each of the 15 national parks, providing complete and total coverage of Great Britain. A one-month subscription costs £3.99 and 1 year is £23.99.
These maps will also be available offline, so you don’t need to burn through your available data or even have any mobile phone reception, and it uses the GPS feature of most smartphones to track your location.
Ordnance Survey has thoroughly tested the new app, releasing it as a beta last year during which time it has been used by over 750,000 people with lots of feedback providing improvements that have been incorporated into this official release.
“Over the past decade we’ve seen digital mapping in general come a long way, but as soon as you venture away from urban spaces the detail is lacking. That lack of detail limits possibilities and also presents a safety problem to anyone that solely uses digital mapping to navigate their way through the countryside,” says Nick Giles, Managing Director of Ordnance Survey Leisure.
“With OS Maps, we wanted to create a digital map that has the same high standards in detail and design as our paper maps. The aim has always been to make the great outdoors enjoyable, accessible and safe, and I think OS Maps achieves this and will help more people #GetOutside and get more from their adventures in this fabulous country.”
You can view the desktop version of OS Maps here, download it for iOS 8 and Android. Right, we're off to download the app and have an explore of our local, and not-so-local, area.
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David has worked on the road.cc tech team since July 2012. Previously he was editor of Bikemagic.com and before that staff writer at RCUK. He's a seasoned cyclist of all disciplines, from road to mountain biking, touring to cyclo-cross, he only wishes he had time to ride them all. He's mildly competitive, though he'll never admit it, and is a frequent road racer but is too lazy to do really well. He currently resides in the Cotswolds.