1.40 – Download maps directly from the app!

Ever since I added support for custom maps in the app, I’ve wanted to make it possible to download these maps directly from the app. So that users wouldn’t spend time and nerves searching for these maps on the internet or mastering different programs to create these maps.

But it turned out to be not so simple, primarily for two reasons:

Firstly, most maps have their copyright holders, and the Play Market is very strict about copyright infringement. If someone’s rights are violated – the app will be immediately removed, and the developer’s account will be permanently banned. Google, Yandex, Bring prohibit downloading their maps for offline use. And when you start looking, you realize that this applies to almost all maps.

The second reason is less significant but still. To distribute maps for download, you need your own server, or not your own but someone else’s, like Amazon’s, and at the same time, you need to pay for hosting, and quite a lot. It doesn’t make much sense to spend money if the app doesn’t earn it. Big thanks to those users who “buy me a beer” in the app! But the money collected this way over 3 years is enough for a maximum of one or two months of hosting payment.

But the Susanin team doesn’t consist of foolish people, and we can find compromises and solutions!

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As you can see now, a “Download Maps” option has appeared in the side menu. By choosing this option, you get to the screen with the currently available map download options. These are Schubert (thanks to the “This Place” website for the provided content) and two variants of “General Staff” maps (for those who don’t know – these are Soviet military maps). One of them is a depth map of the Dnieper based on General Staff materials, and the other is just two huge sheets covering the entire western part of the USSR and part of northern and eastern Europe.

I hope Schubert maps will be appreciated by treasure hunters. As I see, there are quite a few of them among the app’s users now. The General Staff maps will be very useful for anglers. The Dnieper map shows depths and isobaths, while the 1941 map shows the territory covering reservoirs before flooding. Personally, this is even more valuable to me than depths and isobaths.

We didn’t accidentally decide to test this feature starting with these maps. They are all quite old, and copyright doesn’t apply to them. That is, at least the first problem shouldn’t be here 🙂 .

The map downloading process step by step differs slightly for Schubert and General Staff maps. Schubert:

If in words, the process is as follows:

• On the appeared map, long-press the area you’re interested in
• Confirm that the map is selected correctly by pressing OK
• After downloading the map and payment, the map is placed in the “Downloads” folder and in the app is added to the layers and opens full screen.

Downloading General Staff maps differs only in that all zone sheets are outlined with a red line, and you select by clicking on the corresponding zone.

I don’t think it’s even worth explaining that a stable internet connection is necessary to download the map without problems.

For the first and third maps, there is an option to download a demo section to see how it works and looks approximately.

In subsequent updates, the list of maps available for download will increase. The next ones are the depth map of the St. Petersburg region (Ladoga, Neva, Gulf of Finland) and the Volga, based on the example of the Dnieper map.

If things go well (and we are sure they will), of course, free maps for download will also be added. For now, we need to try to ensure some income to pay for hosting and invest in app development. Moreover, the prices, as I think, are very democratic – from $0.5 to $3 per map.