i Hike GPS : Topo Maps 4+

Lacking organization

This app is amazing works great while hunting in areas with no service what so ever. The only thing I see that would make this app better would be a way to store maps and waypoints in specific folders for the different areas that may be downloaded. Would be 5 stars otherwise.

Developer Response ,

iHikeGPS uses search instead of folders so you don't have to spend time maintaining a folder organization. For example if you want only waypoints or maps that are in the Rocky Mountain National Park area, just type “40 105" in the search bar at the top of the Waypoints or Map List screen. Since Rocky Mountain National Park is located between 40° and 41° latitude, and -105° and -106° longitude, only those places in and around Rocky Mountain National Park will appear in the filtered listing of maps or waypoints.

Good stuff

I’m passionate the outdoors. I seem to use paper maps and iPhone/iPad apps weekly for hiking, backpacking, bikepacking, backcountry skiing and exploring in my car. I have maintained a paid Gaia subscription for years, I’ve used low cost/free GPS mapping tools, location enabled PDF’s, etc. Still iHike is the simplest, fastest, most intuitive app of them all, with also the lowest power consumption and best map download facility. These days I only use Gaia on my Mac at home for planning.

The map choices on iHike are ‘limited’ to USGS and USFS topos, but in real life these are the ones you need for backcountry travel.

It works but....

Good app for hunting, hiking or even tracking. I like the fact that you can enter shared coordinates and track your own with different icons. There’s are plenty of default roads and waypoints that help your progress and the offline maps are a plus.

I would like to see more map options, especially with the offline maps. I don’t always know what the terrain ahead of me looks like, so a more detailed map would really help out there. Also, when I am tracking from one grid to the next, the downloaded map just disappears until I double tap on the white area, then the map I just left disappears. I need to screen shot and send my progress for work and that is a real problem if I can’t show where I was at.

Within the last few days, the app won’t find my location. It’ll just take me to the last map I downloaded, not my current location. I need coordinates of where I’m at. Not very useful anymore.

I might delete app and pay again for something else that is more reliable.

Developer Response ,

iHikeGPS works in two modes, with and without map stitching. Map stitching can be turned on and off in Settings. Map stitching OFF allows you to see all of the information in the margins of the USGS topo quads, but it does give the described behavior of the current quadrangle disappearing from view when you switch to viewing a new quadrangle where the margins would cover up the view of the previous map. Map stitching ON is the normal mode that most people will use. In that mode, all map quads are continuously visible, clipped at the margins, and stitched together as you move across quad boundaries. The only exception is where two map quads have different map projections, such as one quad being a modern USFS map using the latitude-longitude map projection, and the adjacent quad being a USGS map using the Universal Transverse Mercator zone map projection.

The only way iHikeGPS would not find your current location is if the Location Services part of the iOS operating system is not providing your current location to the app. To fix this, make sure that Privacy>Location Services permissions are turned on in the Settings app for iHikeGPS. Sometimes the GPS receiver in an iOS device temporarily stops providing a location. To fix this, restart your device, turn off AutoLock, start iHikeGPS, then place your iOS device outside somewhere with a clear view of the entire sky and let it sit there for a half hour or so to re-establish a lock on the received GPS satellite signals.