ImgOsm – Cydia, “Free”

ImgOsm is a brand new and “free” GPS navigation application for the iPhone. They claim that it is “the latest & probably the best map application for handheld devices.”. You’ll quickly determine whether or not that is actually true.

When first opening the app, you’ll notice a blue box that says this app is a trial. You can use this app for 15 minutes before the “display will be obstructed”. The app is actually $30. Again, they claim that this is the best map app for handheld devices. Let me just say right now that, that is completely false. This is probably the worst attempt at such a map.

The maps come from some sort of database online. You must download these maps and choose them from a list. They don’t take very long to download, but this lets you use the app without a data connection. The app is very intimating at first, but most buttons and menus are self explanatory. The developer(s) said that this app is beautifully designed to be “anti-clutter”. This is partly true. There is very little junk on the screen and various menus. The graphics are very ugly and old-ish.

As for navigation. It’s extremely confusing as to how to do, well, anything. The developer put up a online manual here. I’ve yet to actually get the app working as shown in the images. I was able to download maps for my area, and get it displayed on the app, but it wouldn’t show the street names or anything like that. One thing that was really cool is, after pressing the “?GPS” button, the screen will move around in circles and slowly move in to where I am located (the green arrow). This is probably a glitch, but it’s a good one. Actually, it doesn’t even zoom to where I am. It circle-zooms in on some random spot a few miles away from me.

That’s about it with this app. There aren’t very many features, and for the $30 price tag, I doubt this app will do very good. It’s very basic, the graphics are poor, and functionality is horrible. Since you get a free 15 minute trial, you can give it a try yourself, but you probably won’t find any use for it.