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Turn-by-turn directions coming to Ordnance Survey Maps

Super stealth map app gains features – but needs more offline

Born slippy

It's easier to have a gander at the screenshots than explain.

“You’re seeing two kinds of maps," Scott-Robinson explains. "The Mercator National Grid reference Landranger maps, and the slippy map. We don’t replace one map with another. We take the location and slide the new map underneath and reveal it each time you switch between maps."

OS Maps app

OS Maps app: the menu, the new slippy map, and a route (showing elevation)

OS Maps app - views

The app integrates Landranger (left), aerial (centre) and a night mode (right)

Zooming in on a location

A date hasn't yet been set for the gala roll-out. The paper leisure maps have been given a cosmetic makeover and any similarities are entirely intentional. (When you buy a paper map you also get a code for the digital version).

The Ordnance Survey has fended off two very different kinds of political threats in recent times – privatisation and freetards. Both threats have receded and the organisation is probably better off for the experience.

It is now more commercially savvy and does a bit more basic data sharing. (The vector open dataset is used for Minecraft). But a good geographical database is labour intensive, requiring constant surveying and curation.

The OS was created 224 year ago. These days the chief is Nigel Clifford, who was boss of Symbian – which some older readers may have heard of. ®

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