Mini Review: BlackBerry PlayBook USA On-Device GPS Map (Offline Map)

Developer: Skylab Mobilesystems Ltd.
Web Site: AppWorld
Rating:
Price: $9.99

Skylab recently released a bunch of city and country offline maps for Blackberry Playbook. This was very exciting news, as currently most the map applications require downloading the maps online and caching the trip. However, Skylab seems to be playing marketing games here, as the data is only on device when you browse to a location and cache it online.  So this is really not a real on-device map like many other GPS apps in different platforms (TomTom, Igo, Navigon) where the full map is stored on your device. Those apps will work fine perfectly without any data connectivity. On the other hand Skylab’s software will not.

Also, their info on their application page is misleading too: “This offline map is stored on your PlayBook™, once you download the entire app, you are good to go. “. I downloaded the app (a 450 Mb download) and was very hopeful. On my first run, it told me I didn’t have any cached data and it will start downloading. I was thinking, great it will download the whole US maps and I’ll be good. Nope. It only downloaded where I was currently located.

Above picture is when I scroll down a bit from my current location a bit while offline. Funny enough, I went out to the full US map while online, quickly zoomed into one location and waited 30 seconds. The results weren’t pleasing either:

The options in the app is very limited as well, there really isn’t much to customize there:

There is no search, no navigation, no voice prompts, etc. So if you need directions or voice navigation you won’t find it here. And finally to drop the nail into this app’s coffin, I was laying down on my bed near the window. The app showed me as speeding at a whooping 20 miles (32Km) /hr. Next I went outside, set on a chair. Now I was going at 80miles(128Km)/hr. That is just not right (Unless my house was moving that fast beyond my knowledge )

The maps are provided by OpenStreetMap project. I wouldn’t call them the most reliable (in comparison to Navteq and TeleAtlas), but they are alright.

Overall, $9.99 is an overkill for this app, the description is misleading and it does not work. I would highly recommend staying AWAY from it.

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