A little over two months after Skobbler debuted ForeverMap 2 for iOS, an OpenStreetMaps-powered mapping tool with offline route-planning, the German startup has announced that it’s now introducing a travel guide into its navigation app.
Now, in addition to being able to download maps from around the world, users will be able to read about their destinations offline too, an added feature that comes free for anyone who buys the app – which costs €0.89 for a limited time, rising to €2.99 after. For US users, these prices are ‘Free’ and ‘$2.99’.
OpenStreetMap is the user-generated, collaborative project that’s striving to produce open editable maps of the world, and we first covered Skobbler‘s ForeverMap way back in March 2011.
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ForeverMap 2 lets users input an address to receive a range of directions depending on their method of transportation; walking or driving. The map is able to follow your position using GPS, while its offline mode gives access to maps which are paid-for and downloaded over WiFi.
The maps weigh-in at an average of 200MB or so, and can be downloaded by country (or by state, if you’re in the US).
The new travel guide features 90,000 English-language pages crowdsourced and written by registered Wikitravel users from around the world. Though the likes of Google Maps does include layers for Wikipeida entries on its Android app, this feature is missing on the iOS version and, at any rate, it’s not available offline. So Forever Map 2’s latest update could prove popular with travelers.
“We promised more exciting features following the launch of Forevermap 2 and this is the first of them – but let me tell you there are many more to come,” says skobbler CTO Philipp Kandal.
“Our target with ForeverMap 2 was to create the ultimate worldwide mapping and travel app and to do this we knew we had to outperform what’s currently available,” he continues. “With hybrid online/offline functions, our continued dedication towards the excellent OpenStreetMap, and now an extensive travel guide, we believe we’ve done this, and best of all for an unbeatable price.”
Founded in 2008, Berlin-based Skobbler has shifted more than 3.5 million apps on iOS alone, and recently introduced its navigation app to Android, which includes offline turn-by-turn directions.
The updated app is available now – there are two versions, one for the US and one for everywhere else.
➤ ForeverMap 2, iOS – International Version | US Version
Feature Image Credit – Calsidyrose/Flickr
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