Everybody would say: Finally! Yes, xGPS 1.2 has been released. The version has been sent to the MMI repository and will be available within some hours. It should be in everybody’s Cydia as the MMI repository is installed by default. Just do a refresh within some hours and xGPS should pop up.
This version of xGPS has required us a lot of hours of work. We have tried to bring the most advanced and stable navigation software for the iPhone / iPod touch. However, even if we have made our best, you have to keep in mind that this software is free but not bug free. If you experience such a bug feel free to ask in the forum but do not say “It doesn’t work, it’s crappy”.
New Features
A lot of new features have been added. We will not re-enumerate them again. You can find an exhaustive list in the previous pre-release post. One thing which hasn’t been mentioned is a new way to create itinerary called “Routes manager”. Using this function you can compute and save routes for offline use. It let you choose places and addresses as starting and ending point. Please notice that there is currently no support for routes with more than one starting and one ending points. It’s due to a Google limitation and we are working on it.
The new major improvement in this version is the voice instructions support. It uses a Text-To-Speech engine to convert text instructions to sound. So there is no way to change the voice yourself as it is not pre-recorded sound. We are working on a cleaner English voice which should be included in the subsequent releases.
Also please note that this version will delete any existing downloaded maps on your device .
xGPS Manager
A new version of xGPS manager is also released. It has been rewritten from scratch and should be more user-friendly and self-explanatory. It is available for Mac OS X and Windows. For Windows users, you should have the Java system installed. Be sure to have it installed (you can download it at the Java Sun Website) before installing xGPS Manager. The manager can be downloaded from the official xGPS website.
Official xGPS Website
A website for the project has also been developed. It is still in hard development and the only thing available now is the ability to download xGPS Manager. We want also to inform you that we are experiencing some servers problems and are making our best to solve them. That’s why the websites sometimes become unavailable.
Logo
We have also chosen one of the proposed logo. We would like to thank you all for your ideas and creations. It was very difficult to choose. The creator of the logo (which can be seen in the blog header) is: dna75. A big thanks to him!
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank all of you for your support and interest. Without you this project would not be in the state as it is today. We would like to restate that donations are still welcomed and allow us to offer xGPS for free and to afford servers costs. We would also to thank Thomas Heben and Fabio who are managing and answering all the questions of the forum, and even more! Thank you guys! Thanks go also to all the translators of xGPS. Thanks to them the project is translated in almost 25 languages! Impressive! Thanks go also to Demis Balbach for the amazing design of the website. Thanks also to ModMyI to host our project in their Cydia repository. Finally we would to thank you all the people we forgot to mention (sorry for that!). Without you this project would die.
One more thing…
As people always want to know the future. We will release and intermediate version some weeks later to fix translation problems which could have been occured and also minor bug fixes. You can still find exactly what is going to be fixed in subsequent releases by checking the TRAC website.
Tags: 1.2 release
Hi. great app. I have been using xgps from day 1 it was first launched. excellent work done in 1.2. specially the map manager is very useful. Just wanted to know is there anyway you can add the “avoid toll” feature which is already there in google maps. it would really help. Thanks for a great gps utility.
Has anyone tested this on highway exits, does it say like “Exit Right in XXX amount meters.
@ betobetun
Yes the app is free, but why do you think it is free? Because it isn’t good enough to be a paid app. Sure it may work well for you, but for people like me who don’t have a data plan it is simply useless for me. It doesn’t have offline routing or offline recalculating, I’m stuck using google’s directions with an option of going through only one route, it crashes alot, google maps is updated very well and the voice is terrible etc. So please, just because it may work well for you doesn’t mean it does for us. Sure it is free, but there is a reason for it to be free. The new version 1.2 looks nice but has it added any more functionality? I don’t think so. It has however increased alot of bugs. And why are people who don’t think the app works well dumb, egocentric and think that we know everything? I would LOVE to see you try use this app as a dedicated gps and see how well you go. I think you should grow up a bit before saying stupid and imature comments.
Most of the apps in the appstore that are fairly expensive are well worth the money and are polished apps. Beejive is expensive but it is a great app, G-map isn’t cheap but it is far more useful to me than xgps. It’s got everything you could want in a gps app except for the voice guidance, it doesn’t support many countries but it should soon. Xgps does have voice guidance, but it sounds terrible, I couldn’t use it.
Hopefully g-map will support my country soon so I can use that.
Edit: was supposed to say google maps *isn’t* updated well.
It dosent show routes in Kuwait. Can this work in Kuwait do I need some settings ? Please help me
Hello developers of xGPS and congratulations for your excellent work.
I am using your application and I was wondering if there is away to import into xGPS an OSM map created from OpenStreetMaps on my PC.
Thank you for your time and keep up the great work!
Fantastic really love it, works perfectly!!!!
Few wishes though:
1 dim of the music while voice command is spoken
2 choice of long instructions as it is now and short ones like: “in 200 meter turn right” because the pronunciation of the local names of streets is confusing and terrible and after all I need to come from the point A to B I do not need to know the names of the streets in between.
3 name of the street on dark background on the screen
4 with next upgrade keep it simple
Seems to be working now after a reset, just very slow calculating it seems.
The next big problem would be the zoom level. Xgps doesn’t go in as close as it used to in prior versions. Google maps provides the closer look, but it seems Xgps doesn’t access those levels anymore.
I watched a video on YouTube where someone dropped a pin, then enabled gps and the pin refreshed every 5 seconds. It almost looked like google maps, but not sure, is this feature available with xgps? I think the pin was on the current location, but not sure.
It sounds like you’re just talking abut standard GPS tracking, which this program does and updates more than once every five seconds. It works very well for this.
Finally downloading a large file, I gave up on multiple zooms including 0, this took an impossible amount of time to calculate, but downloading seems to go at a pretty good pace.
Things I’d like fixed first…
Final zoom steps instiled again
Speed up the calculaiton time, something must be wrong with the coding or something. It had my CPU working over time, kicked in the fans and caused the battery to drain. This shouldn’t require this much computing.
I do wish people on here would concentrate on why this page is here. There are plenty of places to go and moan about software you don’t like and have healthy debates on the pros and cons of features and such things, but why not leave this for what the developers have very kindly asked for? That being a place for people to let them know what’s wrong with their app so they can make it better. We can all make judgements on what we think we should use this for, but the developers did specifically mention that they’d appreciate constructive criticism.
If there’s something specific you don’t like about xGPS, post something useful, if you’ve encountered an error, post something useful, but who benefits from comments like “It’s buggy” and “It’s not as good as GMap”?
Those things are certainly worth knowing, and I would expect to see such things on review sites, but this is essentially a place to let the developers know how they can improve their app.
To Dave: Go get yourself a dataplan instead of complaining all the time. It really pisses me off when folks like you want the best but will not pay a dime for it. I really can’t respect a guy like you. This program works just fine. I have a tomtom 930 for longer trips, but this one does the trick when going from A to B and yes, it is free.
i have a couple of difficultties:
i am not able to put citys in the route even citys like colgne-
it drave big power
is ther a trik ore a special pocedger get get the start and finished points in?
otherwise super
someone knows how to use xgps manager without proxy?
sorry for the mistake earlier. The question is: someone knows how to use xgps manager with proxy
hi
Is there a way of recalculating the route because when i missed a turn it just says “wrong way”.
@Dave
Funny enough I dont have a data plan and xgps fits my need well. I would buy gmaps if it had TBT, but is doesnt so its not worth 20 to me.
Anyone else having trouble getting the voice prompts to work? I found a couple other forums where people are having the same problem but no answers. Any help would be appreciated.
Thank you. I will try this one today
Looks nice. Keep it free.
Cheers
Haven’t have time to extensively test it yet, just wanted to give props for such an awesome program!
Xgps manager
Download freezes on large files, when cancel download is clicked, it attempts to cancel, but freezes.
Dave is mean. He doesn’t earn my respect. If he doesn’t like it, delete it and he doesn’t lose a penny. He is real immature whining to the author who spent hours and hours developing something for our free use. he should realize that Windows Vista doesn’t work, but people paid for it! His cellphone might be buggy, but he paid for it! XGPS doesn’t not work flawlessly, but he grab it for free! If he must whine, whine to Bill Gate, to HTC, to Nokia or even to Apple/ Steve before whining to XGPS.
Understand that developers like XGPS’, free the world and make our life better and easier. When the program is ready, I am ready to pay.
Thanks again to the author
I agree, I don’t know how these guys are doing it for free. The only thing I can think of is they got rights or something of that sort to the Euro sales of the Igps360 module. I TOO would pay for this software with its current features…..if it worked correctly for me ( no dig there, all things have bugs when first released). Personally, it does what I want it to, I can find locations, track myself, see my location relative to where I’m going. These are more important to me than on the fly searches etc. The only thing I ask, that may or may not already be implemented, is a way to mark current location…IE good camping spot, good store, hard to find restaraunt, etc.
Voice prompts work fine for me, just does a lot of unnecessary recalculating.
IMPORTANT Feature Request: Add a destination Button (menu item) with a list of editable destinations like the Rout manager but auto calculating from current position.
I like the app!!! Getting better and better.
First of all thank you. It is working fine for me in the UK, however I didn’t try it too much. I will give it a go today.
Few thoughts: I don’t know why but my commands are quite low volume and I can’t seems to increase it, but it that’s ok.
The second is an idea. Would it be possible to include a feature which would possibly store the map of the area you just drive through?
Other then that….very good.
@Vis
There is an auto recalculate option. From the map view, click on the wrench icon to bring up the Setting menu, then tap Drivign Directions, and then scroll down to the bottom, and you’ll see a Recompute itenerary option. Set that to on, and away you go.
James
I’ve been using this for a couple of days now, and there’s a couple of very specific things I’ve noticed. Near where I live a few of the major roads aren’t quite in the right position on Google maps, and so when I’m driving along, my position appears to show me off roading. Not a big problem in itself, but after a few seconds (may be as much as 30 seconds, I’ve not counted) the route that’s planned disappears, presumable as it tries to get new instructions, but sometimes it can’t then calculate a new route (sometimes because I’m in a dead spot for network coverage and sometimes because I’m just too far from where it thinks the road is. Would it be possible to have it try to get updated instructions in the background, and if it’s unable to get new instructions, just leave me on the current route, even though I appear to have moved off, as in my opinion it’s better to have a route to follow that’s gotta be close, than not having any route.
Also, I think there’s a bug in the night mode selection, if I do this (at 10pm)…
Enable night mode -> ON
Enable timer -> ON
Look at the map, it’s in night mode
Enable night mode -> OFF (i.e. I haven;t turn off the timer, but the option disappears)
Look at the map, it’s still in night mode. If I explicitly turn off the timer and then turn off night mode it reverts to daytime schema, but I’d have thought turning off night mode should turn off the timer automatically?
Also, the maps downloading, would there be any way to resume a partial download if it fails part way through? (either in the iPhone or desktop app).
Great app in so many ways though, keep up the good work.
Hi guys and thanks for such a useful and cool app.
I agree with James M above. When I take a different route from the one computed by xgps it tells me i’m going on the wrong way for a few seconds and then it drops the route. It would be nice if it left the former route on display, especially when (James also said this) one is following the route but for some reason the gps has you somewhere off road.
Hi all,
Testd today in the city and highways.
Except for for the Robocop voice(switched off), the system works perfectly for me (Belgium), I have have to say thanks.
Also, after 80 kms, battery of the 3G is still at 90%.
The only poor thing on the system is the maps download, many many errors when using the manager, impossible to have a map without errors.
Also, when using the download throught the Iphone itself, the download stops and xGPS quit without any messages.
Go on for a good xGPS manager version
Donation on the road.
I find it odd that a few people have chosen to go on the attack. Is the app perfect? Certainly not! But why look a gift horse in the mouth? If I offered you a free burger would you complain that it’s not filet mignon?
I downloaded the app for one reason only: Last week I drove to a location that I had not been to before, I got lost, and I had left my TomTom 720 in my other vehicle. “No problem,” I thought, “I’ll just use the Google Maps app on my iPhone.” Well, I quickly realized that repeatedly looking down at my iPhone was not the safest way to drive. “If only the app could tell me when to turn left/right.” Well, this free app solves that problem. It’s no replacement for my TomTom, but it’s certainly more useful than Google Maps when in the aforementioned predicament.
Rather than complain about what it doesn’t do, be grateful for what it does do.
This is probably the stupidest question so far that has been posted to this forum, but where the hell is the program? lol I installed from Cydia and xGPS is nowhere to be found within my apps. Please help if ya could! =]
Hi,
Well first of all thanks alot for this lovely app. I had downloaded it and its really good. But im facing one problem while using it. i am not able to hear any voice command. I tried no. of times, check my volume level, but its not speaking. Although works fine just showing directions but no speech.
Can anyone help me out to solve this problem.
Thanks.
@Vis
If you press the red “Wrong Way” icon it will ask you if you want to recalculate your route.
A feature I would like to see added is a refresh GPS signal button, I know there is a reset GPS in the options screen, but it would be good if this could also be added to the GPS information screen, so that when you press the satellite/gps signal image from the map you can easily refresh the GPS.
Otherwise a great app, as others have said it’s not perfect, but it’s getting there.
I am looking forward (and hoping it will be in the next release) to it being able to recalculate a route when you are offline. Also it should be able to “Go Home” and calculate the route from where you are to your home address when you are not online, after all it knows your current location and it knows your home address.
Keep up the great work guys.
nzbullet
cancel my post, i’m an idiot for sure.
xGPS manager freezes up on me. I am using MacBook Pro with 4GB of RAM, I have to force quit it each time. As soon as I click on DOWNLOAD after choosing zoom levels (only 0,17) it hangs up on me? Has anybody else have had the same problem? I am trying to download maps of Toronto and Great Toronto Area!
@dave
you missed the point completely. for your information i dont have a data plan either so dont assume what you dont know. you clearly havent used g-maps. the app is a fraud 20 dollars for the worst ui i have ever seen in a gps. i bought it and i want a refund and apple says i cantget one. for example in g-maps you can’t enter the address as you need to. it gives you hints on what you are looking for. seriouly it takes me 5 minutes to just get close to my destination. another huge mistake in g-maps is the fact the it constantly is recomputing your route so you never have a certain specific route to go by. there are almost no setting on this app and if you gonna do a trip 2 hours or more it will drive you crazy. becuase i actualy paid for this app i feel i can ditch at it becuase its so flaud. this i didnt pay a cent and it does a decent job at it and i point out its faults but that doesnt mean im gonna start insulting the devs becuase it has faults. if you pay something for this app then feel free to complain all you want because you paid for a bad app not worth the money. so please grow up and dont take this personally.
I solved my problem above by choosing a tiny area. Okay so here’s the thing: When the map finishes downloading it says there were some errors downloading, the file size is all whacked (doesn’t correspond with the initial estimate) and then in the end I don’t get the maps names in the field (it’s all blank). What gives?
A minor issue I’d like to see fixed in the future – when units are set to miles instead of kilometers, voice prompts are still using kilometers.
when i search for a place to find it wont located it and direct me. just stays in the same location I am in? Anyone know how to fix this or what GPS they are using I am using the 3G XGPS one
Routing dont work in japan maps,how i can create a route in japan?or realy dont work?
Dave should go back to a chalkboard and an abacus, alas he is too ignorant and bitter to use anything but, especially hard work of others and modern technology. The development of XGPS is a step to allow us still another option. It will be improved, but only at the hands and hard work of the developer. Congratulations to the developer, and sincere pity to Dave for being too cheap to purchase a data plan. It appears he would rather bash other’s attempts and continue to be part of the problem instead of choosing to be part of the solution.
Translation Errors !!!
The German translation isn’t right, in the NightMode for example, Start and Stop are translated with Abfahrt and Ankunft meaning Departure and Arrival, it should be: Anfang or Start and Ende, or Aktivieren and Deaktivieren, or Von / Bis depending on the context.
I offer myself for future translations. For free !
Can someone tell me how to get the voice command activated and working. Does the voice command only available when wifi or 3g is turn ON ? I like the user interface and the complexity but need some help on how to get started.
Love the program…Have been waiting for something like this to come along for some time, and am pleasantly surprised as to what it can do.
I am having trouble, though, with the xGPS Maps Manager. It does not like to create an offline map of Victoria, Australia, so that the only thing that would need downloading whilst driving would be the route.
It ‘hangs’ as soon as the application begins to download the map. I have reinstalled Java, thinking that it was an issue with the program, but it is not. I have also reinstalled xGPS Manager in my PC.
Anyone got any ideas?
Thanks for helping me out James and nzbullet
Iv been using it a few days now and it works quite well just a few instances where it just froze at random
@Shahruk: I am on Windows and have the exact same problem: no map names and tiles missing at certain zoom levels. After a long map download, it also hangs up my internet access and I have to reboot the PC. Anyone else have this?
The devs here don’t answer questions so I guess I should tell people about my own experience. The maps manages hangs up because you need to mark small areas to download, don’t go for large maps. The maps manager can’t handle (or your computer can’t handle)…either ways that won’t work
Anyway, small amounts of maps worked for me!
For the person whose Internet connection is dying on him..if you’re using DSL, you need to check if you don’t have any packet loss, have your telephone line checked again and speed altered for best SNR and attenuation..go for signal noise below 15db
I had the same troubles with my xGPS Manager freezing when trying to download a large map (Toronto).
I somehow overcame it by killing the process when it froze and starting the download process once again and again and again (took me like 10 attempts at all). It stared from the last point and went about 10% for one attempt.
Anyway, now I have a GTA map and it works like a charm!
Thank you so much for such a great app!!
P.S. Freezing Manager is the only bug I’m complaining so far. Everything else is hot!
Thank You for the great work.
- dim the ipod music while speaking commands
- add option switch (street name speech ON/OFF) to be able to hear or not the street name spoken
Please contact me for ROMANIAN LANGUAGE translation. I would like to translate for free to pay respect to the creators of this app.
Thank You
When you download big maps the MAP MANAGER seems to freeze but is NOT. JUST WAIT for the program to calculate. After a while he will tell you how big the map you want to download is, and offer you the option to continue.
If you are in a rush just download small areas of the map at one time.