0.5.10: the car map follows the car's day and night

The car map now follows your car's own day and night, and nothing on the car screen sends you to your phone.

Install on the phone: download Overworld-Maps-0.5.10.apk below and open it (Android 10 or newer). This APK is for the phone only and doesn't show up in Android Auto. It uses free stand-in fonts and icons instead of the games' own. For the car, install the Google Play copy: join the Algothrim testers group, open the Play testing page and tap Become a tester (India for now, see Get it). The APK and the Play copy are signed differently, so uninstall one before installing the other.

Car screen

• Day and night from the car. Time of day "Auto" now follows the day and night Android Auto reports from the car's light sensor or headlights, so the map switches at dusk and in tunnels. Until a car has reported, Auto follows the sun as before.
• A fresh install starts the car on GTA VI, the world with both a day and a night map. Settings on the car says when a world keeps one look (GTA V always dark, Red Dead always light).
• "Where to?", the empty Saved list and the idle hint point to Search and Nearby instead of asking you to use the phone.
• Opened in the car before location was ever allowed, the car screen explains the next step, and Allow works only while parked. It closes itself once location is allowed.

Phone

• With Android Auto on, the phone remote reads "Only look at your phone when it's safe."

0.5.9: Overworld's menus on the car screen, the phone as a car remote, smoother car gestures

Overworld's own menus on the car screen, the phone as a remote for the car, and smoother dragging and zooming in Android Auto.

Install on the phone: download Overworld-Maps-0.5.9.apk below and open it (Android 10 or newer). This APK is for the phone only and doesn't show up in Android Auto. It uses free stand-in fonts and icons instead of the games' own. For the car, install the Google Play copy: email your Gmail address to gaurav@thealgothrim.com to join Play testing (see Get it). The APK and the Play copy are signed differently, so uninstall one before installing the other.

New

• Menus in the game's look on the car screen. Parked, a compact "Where to?" card shows search, Home, Work and your last places, each one tap away, with Nearby, Saved and Settings at its foot. While driving, Nearby, Settings and End come up with a touch and leave with Android Auto's own buttons. Settings, Saved, Nearby and search results open as panels over the live map instead of a plain full-screen list (Android Auto's lists are still one switch away).
• The phone is a remote for the car. With Android Auto on, the phone shows the trip, the route preview with Start, search and shortcuts, and the car screen's settings, all in the car's theme. "Phone map" brings the map back for a passenger.
• The car keeps its own settings. Its theme, time of day and map details are its own, so the phone can stay on another world. Place icons now show on the car map too.
• Instrument cluster: the arrow sits low so most of the map is road ahead, and it pulls back further at speed.
• Update notice: a dot on Settings when a newer version is out.

Fixes

• Car screen: dragging follows the finger, a flick glides on, and pinching zooms where your fingers are. A pinch while the map follows the car only zooms.
• The car map opens at the right zoom instead of creeping in for a few seconds.
• GTA VI: the "Arrive" card shows its arrow, and a destination in view no longer gets a second dot on the map's edge.

0.5.8: reroutes at U-turn gaps, Settings in the car, your places on the map, new icon sets

Reroutes that hold up at U-turn gaps, Settings on the car screen, your places on the map, and a complete new icon set for each world in the Google Play copy. Covers 0.5.6, 0.5.7 and 0.5.8.

Install on the phone: download Overworld-Maps-0.5.8.apk below and open it (Android 10 or newer). This build uses free stand-in fonts and icons instead of the games' own. For the car, Android Auto needs the Google Play copy: see Get it. The APK and the Play copy are signed differently, so uninstall one before installing the other.

New

• Settings on the car screen. Theme, time of day, place icons, traffic, 3D buildings, the game HUD, the camera beep and + Cam all switch from the car.
• Your places on the map. Home, Work and starred places stand on the map in each world's style. Tap one to open it.
• New icon sets (Google Play copy). Each world has its own 80-icon set across its buttons, Nearby chips, map places, your own places and road alerts. GTA VI's map icons follow the look of the game's blips. The APK keeps its free stand-ins.
• More places marked (Google Play copy). Cafes, fast food, hospitals, ATMs, schools, gyms, toilets, malls, EV chargers and tyre shops now show on the map in every world.
• Phone: the re-centre button is your own marker ringed in the route colour, the scale box sits beside it, two fingers tilt the map, a compass mode, and the arrow follows the phone's heading when you're moving slowly.

Fixes

• Reroutes after a U-turn gap keep Google's route instead of dropping it, bridging the gap with open routing data.
• A route that starts against the car is asked for again further on, and driving the wrong way along the route counts as off route after 5 seconds.
• Car screen: buttons show at touch-down, zooming is quicker, and re-centre glides back onto the live arrow.

0.5.5: GTA VI closer to the game, map on the instrument cluster

GTA VI matched more closely to Rockstar's footage, the map on the car's instrument cluster, and a traffic fix from real drives in a Tata Curvv. Covers 0.5.4 and 0.5.5.

Install on the phone: download Overworld-Maps-0.5.5.apk below and open it (Android 10 or newer). This build uses free stand-in fonts and icons instead of the games' own. For the car, Android Auto needs the Google Play copy: see Get it. The APK and the Play copy are signed differently, so uninstall one before installing the other.

New

• Instrument cluster. Cars whose dials have a map view (the Tata Curvv has one) can now show Overworld there: the themed map, the route and the arrow, while the car prints the next turn and the time itself. It's new and only tried on a few setups, so tell us in an issue whether your car shows it.
• GTA VI turn card laid out like the game's: the move in words ("Turn Right", "Off-Ramp Right") over the distance, the arrow on a pink square.
• GTA VI minimap edges: the "N" slides round the map's border, and when the destination is off the map its pink dot waits on the border in its direction (car screen and phone).
• GTA VI by time of day: buildings at their real heights (no height cap), speed cameras as the game's CCTV marker, golden-hour highways with lanes between pale stripes, deep teal parks at night, and stacked flyover ramps that stand apart on dark edges at night.

Fixes

• Traffic on the route now starts exactly at the arrow. A red jam used to carry on up to 25 m behind the car, and on GTA V the purple route showed down both sides of it.

0.5.3: music, phone locked, car buttons

Fixes from real drives in a Tata Curvv. Covers 0.5.2 and 0.5.3.

Install on the phone: download Overworld-Maps-0.5.3.apk below and open it (Android 10 or newer). This build uses free stand-in fonts instead of the games' own. For the car, Android Auto needs the Google Play copy: see Get it. The APK and the Play copy are signed differently, so uninstall one before installing the other.

Fixes

• Music no longer stays quiet for the whole trip. With voice guidance off, the navigation library still asked Android to turn other audio down before every turn prompt, then never gave it back because nothing was spoken.
• The app no longer stops with the phone locked. Samsung's app freezer could pause it mid-drive (GPS and traffic stopped until the phone was unlocked). The first launch now asks to let it run in the background, and Settings > Phone locked shows whether it's set.
• Car screen: the zoom and sound buttons stay hidden while you drive, like Google Maps. A tap, drag or pinch brings them up for about 10 seconds. They used to stay on whenever the car was under 8 km/h, which in city traffic was most of the time.
• Split screen: the "Where to?" card and the other HUD cards keep clear of the map window's rounded corner.

0.5.1: Google routes, steady GPS, game-style car buttons

The first release with an APK to download. Covers 0.5.0 and 0.5.1.

Install on the phone: download Overworld-Maps-0.5.1.apk below and open it (Android 10 or newer). This build uses free stand-in fonts instead of the games' own, and live traffic comes from Google alone. For the car, Android Auto needs the Google Play copy: see Get it. The APK and the Play copy are signed differently, so uninstall one before installing the other.

Driving

• Trips follow Google Maps' own route and traffic, laid onto the game map (one switch in Settings goes back to open data only). Search finds places only Google lists.
• Steady GPS: at a red light the marker stays put, under a flyover it carries on along the road, and a real wrong turn reroutes within seconds while a single stray fix never does.
• A camera per game (steep GTA VI, gentle GTA V, flat Red Dead) with Google-style zoom: out on fast roads, framing the next turn from about a kilometre away, flatter as the turn comes up.
• The arrow sits where the car is now, low on the screen, and stops swinging on straight roads.
• "Location not found" when GPS is gone, and the speed hides instead of showing an old one.

Car screen

• Sound, zoom and route buttons drawn in each game's style, in place of Android Auto's grey ones. They come and go with Android Auto's own buttons.
• Drag or pinch the map on a trip, and a re-centre button stays until you tap it.
• The HUD fits every head unit size and the map's half of split screen, and taps land on the right button there too. Switching layouts glides.
• • Cam (mark a speed camera) is now off unless turned on in Settings, and shows only after a touch.

Map

• Flyovers stand above the roads they cross, with a shadow, and the route runs over or under them like the games' minimaps.
• GTA VI: shaded buildings, cleaner glass panels.

Phone

• Landscape layout, and the arrow stays clear of the trip sheet.

0.4.1: fixes

• Directions: closing a place (or picking another) while its route was loading no longer pops up a preview of it a moment later, and a double tap asks for the route once.
• Search: the list no longer blanks to "No places found" while you type, and a search server that hangs now costs 3.5 s instead of up to 20 s.
• The trip notification's Stop only answers this app's own notification; before, any app (or the other build of this app) could end a trip. Its distances are always in km.
• Long trips: live incidents now cover the road ahead, not just the first 100 km or so of the route.
• Car screen with no trip: the HUD no longer flips between the speedometer and "Where to?" in slow traffic; "Where to?" comes back after 20 s standing still.
• Phone: the trip bar no longer empties after a reroute, and a dropped pin is no longer tagged Home just because Home was saved from one.

0.4.0: GTA VI

• GTA VI, a third world: a pink route with a brighter edge that stays the same day and night, 3D buildings with a light that follows the view, lane dashes, and a map that follows the sun (day, dusk, night) or stays on the one you pick in Settings. Sheets on the phone float with rounded corners, set in Inter and Barlow Condensed.
• Hand-made player blips for all three worlds, drawn without stretching. Arrows, waypoints and road icons are smaller, close to the games' own sizes next to the route.
• Car screen: the live speed sits above the left card in every world and turns red over the limit, with the limit sign beside it.
• A cleaner scale bar in the map corner.
• Settings in four groups (Map, Driving, Places, About). Clearing saved places or marked cameras needs a second tap. 3D buildings can be turned off.

0.3.2

• Smoother map on a trip: the route, traffic, lights and cameras were sent to MapLibre again on every animation frame, and the phone screen and car HUD redrew every frame. Now only the arrow and the start of the route move each frame, and the route starts exactly under the arrow.
• Search finds areas: typing an area's name puts the area first (Chattarpur from Gurgaon used to list shops and the metro station before it). Indian spellings match each other (Chhatarpur, Chattarpur), nearer places come first, and answers are cached.
• Nearby along the route: on a trip, places on the way come first with their detour ("On the way", "+3 min"). Nearby is in the car's strip during a trip, and a pick becomes a stop before the destination.
• Time to go: fixed a failed traffic refresh showing the whole trip's time for the rest of it; routes start from the newest GPS fix.
• A small drive log on the phone for checking a drive afterwards.

v0.3.1: camera chime on

• Camera chime, on by default. Two quick rising notes as a speed camera comes within 500 m, on a trip or just driving. It plays on the navigation channel, so Android Auto handles it like a turn prompt: through the car speakers, music turned down for a moment, and not silenced when the phone is on vibrate. Voice guidance stays separate and off. Switching the chime on in Settings plays it once.
• A camera chimes once, then again only after it's a kilometre behind you (the drive back).
• Free-drive camera alerts work even when GPS gives no direction, using the way the last fixes moved.

No download is attached, as before: the author's builds carry personal copies of the game fonts and a traffic key.