I am wanting to purchase apps for my trip to Italy which will have off-line maps that I can use to navigate the city via GPS on my Iphone. Please let me know if you have a good suggestion. At first look in the App Store it appeared the Lonely Planet apps were good, but I have seen some horrible reviews. Thanks for your help!
Posted by
Austin, TX, USA
492 posts
The iPhone GPS uses data to transmit your location so any maps you download ahead of time will only be useful as static maps unless you purchase a data plan or risk data costs. The other issues we saw with our GPS in Rome was that tall close buildings made the GPS not see us until we popped out in large open spaces like piazzas and parks or bridges. The GPS was with us for driving in Tuscany (and great to have for that!) but we thought we'd play with it in the cities as well and found it pretty much useless when walking along city streets.
Posted by
OP
St. Louis, MO, USA
4 posts
Thank you for the info. Is it possible to "load" maps of Italy before you go so a data plan is not necessary? Also has anyone used the Lonely Planet Apps for Rome, Venice or Florence? Thanks for your help.
Posted by
Austin, TX, USA
492 posts
If you have an iPhone 4, I don't think there's an unlock yet for the US phones. I just saw an app this weekend, Offmaps, but the reviews aren't very good and apparently they don't have some larger cities for some of the areas they cover. The LonelyPlanet app has a free version you can download with a City Guide for San Francisco, you could download that and see if you like it and then decide if you want to spend any money on any of the Italy apps. If you like their books their app is likely to be similar.
Posted by
gaston, oregon, usa
842 posts
Andrew,if you jailbreak and unlock your Iphone, when you get to Italy you can install a EU SIM chip in it, and buy a cheap pre-paid data package at an electronics store. I took my Unl. and JB Iphone to Italy with that in mind, but just ended up with a chip that only let me use my phone and WiFi. The problem: I did not find a person that spoke excellent English, who could help me pick from the plans, and then tell me how to use them. I think that my IPhone GPS program is worthless, and would rather uses my stand-alone TOMTOM GPS, which has prved to be indespensible for our EU travels.