Heading vs orientation of the map

[Jactari]

Before writing this comment, I had not realised that OGT, like Apple Maps (that it currently uses), allows finger-rotation of the on-screen map, for instance to allow manual alignment of map North (top) with Magnetic North (the latter as detected by the device's compass function). My comment was a long-winded way of saying it would be great if OGT defaulted to automatic, continuous alignment of map North with compass North. As with Apple maps, the OGT compass icon is very small, even on an iPad -- and only appears after the on-screen map is finger-rotated. Ideally the icon is larger, always on and graphically combines map North and Compass North -- thus emphasising that the above functionality is in operation. I also noted that certain map captions do indeed already rotate when the map is rotated. Combine this with continuous centering of the gps target, and you have a very user-friendly navigator app.

My original comment . . . Several trackers I've used, either don't have a heading function or present the function in such a way as to confuse the user. I think most navigators orientate a paper map rotated such that the direction of travel coincides with the map content ie the map is not held with the top facing North.

To be pedantic, thinking of a mobile device, let's define the top of the device's screen as on the lesser dimension. Let's assume the device is held horizontally with that top furthest away from the user and the side of the screen (the side with the greater dimension) held parallel to the direction of travel. It would be useful if the app placed the direction / heading also parallel with the side of the screen –– rather than having the top of the map facing North.

I imagine the heading is calculated at least from the last two or three gps samples. Ideally the function described would be with a heading arrow symbol combined with a North direction (to avoid confusion as to what the arrow depicts). This implies auto-rotate of the device's screen via its OS is turned off. Setting the app like this could be the default function, with North at the top as an option (or not available at all to keep it simple).

Rotating map's text in step with the map's orientation would be amazing but I don't like to think of the code involved!

[merlos]

This feature request seems to be related with:

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/MapKit/Reference/MKMapView_Class/index.html#//apple_ref/occ/instp/MKMapView/userTrackingMode

enum MKUserTrackingMode : Int {
    case None
    case Follow
    case FollowWithHeading
}

//ie: 
map.setUserTrackingMode(.FollowWithHeading, animated: true)

The change requires:

• create the images of the FollowWithHeading icon for the button followUserButton,
• redefinition of the followUser variable (now is a bool) in ViewController
• refactor functions that use followUser var in the controller