Ik zou zeker niet proberen om iemand te bekritiseren op basis van hun aanpak van routeplanning en organisatie tot in de ‘n’ graad - het vergt allerlei soorten om een wereld te maken.

Het zou geweldig zijn als producenten van allerlei technologie, met name smartphones en tabletten, en software dat zouden herkennen!

Windows 10 is een enorm geval in punt - ik zie het als grotendeels bloatware, waarvan ik sommige kan en verwijderd hebben (inclusief sommige ik ‘niet toegestaan’), maar andere dingen zijn zo diepgeworteld dat het niet kan worden verwijderd, ondanks het geheel overbodig, of zelfs grondig ongewenst.

Waarom maken we niet pakketten (zoals MRA) zeer aangepast?

Als het allerlei soorten nodig heeft, waarom maak je dan niet allerlei soorten gelukkig?

I certainly wouldn’t seek to criticise anyone on the basis of their approach to route planning and organising to the ‘n’th degree - it takes all sorts to make a world.

It would be great if producers of all kinds of technology, particularly smartphones and tablets, and of software, would recognise that!

Windows 10 is a huge case in point - I see it as largely bloatware, some of which I can and have removed (including some I’m ‘not allowed to’), but other stuff is so deep rooted that it can’t be removed, despite being utterly superfluous, or even thoroughly undesirable.

Why not make packages (such as MRA) highly customisable?

If it takes all sorts, why not make all sorts happy?

@timo-martosatiman-mra Regarding the RouteXpert Library on a stick proposal.

Personally, I particularly enjoy the process of researching, creating and refining my own routes rather than just follow something created by others. That’s not to cast doubt on the work of the Route Experts - I’ve looked at a few and they look great. I’m sure many would find them of benefit.

But having a collection of routes on a USB stick all seems a bit… let’s say ‘retro’? Power bank and flashlight or not. It would be yet another bit of kit to carry - and a very lose-able one at that.

Why not just make Route Expert routes, along with those in MRA route lists, individually downloadable onto mobile devices for offline use in the Navigation app, much in the manner that we can already install regional routable maps?

@Nik-Player If you have a phone signal and data turned on you will be able to create routes while on the road. And, unless you know something I don’t, you can’t use Basecamp ‘on the fly’ at all.

The amount of data used to create a route, either in MRA Route Planner, or in the Navigation app, and to set it up in Navigation to run in offline mode will be small. Data consumption for navigating a route can be a bit more of an issue if data is limited in a phone plan, but offline mode works well in my experience.

To use offline mode, you will need to install the relevant maps onto your device. To do so, just select the ‘Offline maps’ tile on the Navigation app home screen, select the ‘Download map’ button on the next screen, then choose and install the required maps.

Regardless of the program/app used, I avoid adding POIs to my routes as, over the years, I have found they can provide unreliable data. Petrol stations no longer in existence, cafés closed down, etc. I do use POIs in the planning stage, but only as an indicator of what might exist in an area. Based on them, I double check using other sources, such as Google Maps & Street View (always checking the date of the Street View imaging because it can vary widely) and following website links to a venue, etc.

Once I’m satisfied that a venue or location checks out, I add it as a waypoint, label it appropriately and set it as a via point, rather than a shaping point.

That might seem a bit OTT to some? But I plan a number of tours, group and long rides each year and I have found that this approach can save a lot of hassle on the road.

The blog starts by outlining what the Navigation app is intended to be and who it is for. But it is not reliably fit for either the purpose stated or, as a result, for subscribers matching your intended user profile. Existing customers have been waiting endlessly for improvements in basic functionality, let alone in its user interface, to make it a genuinely viable option and an alternative to expensive dedicated sat nav devices. The closest we have got to it is hot air promising ‘jam tomorrow’.

Yet that same blog ends by proposing a new app which would be, let’s say, a ‘nanny app’ for those who fall outside of the existing Navigation app’s target audience - those who want everything done for them short of heading off down the road! While I wouldn’t dispute that there might be demand for such a thing, that you are promoting this right now is nothing short of an insult to existing subscribers. It clearly indicates very little intent or effort on the part of MRA to honour their marketing claims of the app being a genuine alternative to those expensive devices, or to service all the support tickets raised and provide a satisfactory customer outcome. This in itself should make anyone wary of the mooted ‘Next’ variant. Why might the outcome for that be any different?

‘Next’ must be to…

MAKE - THE - EXISTING - APP - WORK - EFFECTIVELY - AND - RELIABLY - AS - A - MATTER - OF - URGENCY

…THAT is what you need to do. Not go off on some half baked tangent to create a new fiasco, disappointing a whole new user group!

Hi everyone

My name's PAD and I'm a socialmediaphobe. I tend to steer clear of forums even these days, but think the My Route apps are going to be extremely useful and I look forward to making contact occasionally to help me get the best out of MyRoute. And, who knows, perhaps even be of some help to others?

I'm fairly ancient and a life long motorcyclist who has travelled the UK and Ireland very widely, but with little experience abroad on a bike. I'm hoping, once we can be rid of Covid-19 restrictions, that MyRoute will play a large part in changing that.

Slán go fóill

(Moved from EN FORUM - SELF SERVICE, where I recently managed to post it in error!)

@Kudee I’ve never heard of such behaviour before, and haven’t experienced it myself. Might having the phone in a waterproof case help?

@Steve-Lynch

The file linked to requires a request to view. It might be worth changing the sharing setting to ‘Anyone with the link can view’?

@Nick-Carthew I’ve never explored Devon and Cornwall on a bike, but North Devon looks like it has some interesting roads. I have visited the area, and thought the coast around Hartland was incredible. I must make the effort.

I used to feel fortunate in living about 1.5 hours from the Peak District as well as being so close to all those Welsh roads, and I still am really, but it gets more congested and over regulated by the year. I generally only visit on week days out of peak-season now.

Thankfully, the Welsh Marches are still very quiet and have some cracking roads hidden away.🤫

Following my recent complaints about the Navigation app hardly ever working for me, today I have managed to successfully use the app to do a relatively long ride!!!

It was only about 50 miles from home to destination, but I’d never managed that with Navigation before (with just a few very short runs being navigated successfully to date). In addition to the navigation just working well, I even provoked things a bit by deliberately going off route and bypassing a waypoint. No bother. Yes, the app started to redirect me, as anticipated, but upon reaching the next waypoint after rejoining the route all was spot on.

And I even managed to reverse the route in MRA and it worked (almost) perfectly in Navigation for the return. All in all, very reassuring.

So thank you to the team who are steadily developing the app for a great job in ironing out wrinkles.

I said almost because few times voice guidance started part way through an instruction and was a bit late for a junction twice - this on both outward and return journeys. Also, on the return journey, voice guidance.. went… into… slow… mo… tion a few times. I don’t know what might be the cause of any of this? I was in offline mode AND with mobile data switched off on the return journey. I think iPhone GPS is supplemented by phone signal, though I can’t see that this would be data related - it’s just location using phone masts in conjunction with GPS. ‍️ It’s small stuff though, compared to the app just not working, and I mention it just as feedback.

@hans-van-de-ven-mra-master Interesting! May I ask what iPhone model and version of iOS you are using, please? I was on 15.2 .1 on both, (iPad = 5th generation, by the way) have checked for updates and installed 15.3 on both… Same behaviour on both. I checked on my PC - all good, as I suspected it might be.

Screen shot - GM layer normal zoom level:

GM layer zoomed in - note whole screen zoomed, not just map:

Using Street View - after approx 15 advancements using white arrow:

@hans-van-de-ven-mra-master Thank you, but I did check that and the route I looked at wasn’t locked. The same behaviour persists with other (unlocked) routes too.

Great tips. They made me realise that, while I knew of the routable and non-routeable map layers, I have, perhaps under used them.

Having just spent a few minutes looking at them, I did pick up on one ‘fly in the ointment’. On selecting any of the Google Maps layers, I can no longer zoom in or out, or scroll the map - the whole page moves instead. On selecting any other layer (i.e. non-Google) after trying a Google layer, the problem persists until I refresh the layer, which resets all to default. Not great. Similar can happen when trying to use the Street View tool and, after a short period of usage, the map view goes black. Both occur on iPhone (2 models, 6S+ & 7+) and iPad. I very rarely use MRA on PC these days so can’t comment on whether the same happens here. I did report this latter behaviour some time ago, but it seems to not to have been looked at. A shame as I do really like the Street View facility (as I did in BaseCamp via Google Earth until it was removed).

It seems as though there is a significant problem with Google integration in Routeplanner, at least with iOS. For me, it’s more an inconvenience than a problem and I will just avoid the relevant options. given the lack of response to many support tickets these days, I won't bother opening another ticket.

@paul-hulsegge A number of waypoints are positioned off road to a greater or lesser extent, particularly in the first route. That said, with two exceptions, they don’t appear to be affecting either. Route 1 / No. 10 causes a brief excursion part way down a street before returning (possibly deliberate?) Route 1 / No. 26 causes the route to do a full tour of a roundabout before carrying on its way… Hardly sufficient to cause significant problems. Not on that map layer anyway. But that may not be the case in transfer to your sat nav. Short of me loading the routes onto my Garmin, I can’t really comment further, but I would suggest having a good sequential look at the route as it has transferred. Maybe connect the device to a computer and view the routes in BaseCamp and, if there are any glitches, correct them?

Certainly for Garmin users, being able to use the Here layer in MRA Routeplanner makes subscribing worthwhile in itself, but there are numerous other advantages too and I thoroughly recommend it.

@drabslab We’re on the same page in that!

Yes, a subscription to the Routeplanner app makes for a very useable tool. My thinking in asking for route links is that, due to potential discrepancies in road placement between different map layers, you might have inadvertently ended up with a waypoint or waypoints on the wrong side of a dual carriageway or some such. That could significantly increase route length and still potentially go unnoticed.

I don’t think the sat nav in question introduces much by way of settings that could affect trip duration. That would be more in BaseCamp territory, but that's out of the equation it seems.

@paul-hulsegge Could you provide links to the routes, please? That is a big discrepancy between journey times and the Garmin one seems very pessimistic for that sort of distance. And could you state which BMW-Garmin device you are using too?

I have looked through this thread to identify multiple instances of people claiming Navigation doesn’t function in offline mode and can only find one that even gets close. That instance simply points out that the app doesn’t do so to the extent that dedicated sat nav devices do; in that MRA hasn’t provided the facility to download a route or routes onto the host device. Thus customers (note that word - it might seem old fashioned, but I think it’s important nonetheless!) hoping to use a combination of Routeplanner and Navigation are reliant upon an internet connection to a far greater extent than users of, for example, Garmin BaseCamp and a compatible Garmin device such as one of their Zūmo range. Now, given that MRA’s marketing materials present their products as offering a viable replacement for such route planning and sat nav systems and here is an instance of this simply not being the case, it seems to me that, prima facie, a legal action could reasonably be instigated on the strength of that marketing being misleading.

To date, customers have, patiently and hopefully in the main I think, attempted to encourage MRA to improve the Navigation app via the support system and this forum, both in this regard and in relation to a plethora of endlessly varying performance related issues. Neither avenue has yielded any significant improvements. It would seem that patience is now being strained and hope lost. That’s a great shame. Particularly as incorporating the facility to install routes onto host devices should be relatively straightforward, given that navigable map layers can already be installed for offline use, and that this would go a very long way to providing functionality much closer to that of dedicated sat navs.

The matter of ongoing performance issues would likely remain, of course. And in this regard the support for Navigation seems to have all but disappeared. I tried to feed back issues for some time, but it eventually became quite clear that this is futile. Why? You tell me! Maybe the developers have simply adopted a CBA* approach? Or perhaps funds are tight and development has been suspended? After all, there has been a spate of fundraising attempts of late - several supposedly ‘last chance’ ‘opportunities’ to purchase ‘lifetime’ subscriptions and the bizarre ‘Routexperts on a stick’ thing…
Customers have no way of knowing, given the ever growing lack of transparency and published Navigation app development pathways, etc, from MRA. All we have had is completely unfulfilled promises of imminent improvements, followed by a revelation that, despite the current poor state of Navigation, MRA are considering a parallel app called ‘Next’! Wow!!! Or is that just some form of obfuscation?

The conspicuous absence of input from MRA executives as this thread (and others) develops does nothing to help. Instead, we have the spectacle of a few acolytes seeking to repudiate the use based observations of customers. My experience of the Navigation app is that it is ill conceived and developed, bug ridden (to the point of being potentially dangerous), lacks any meaningful support coverage, is so unreliable as to be worthless to me (hence my deleting it) and is simply not as described in MRA’s marketing. And that is not because I ‘don’t know how to use it’, it’s because, in my experience, it is ill conceived and developed, bug ridden (to the point of being potentially dangerous), lacks any meaningful support coverage, is so unreliable as to be worthless and is simply not as described in MRA’s marketing.

But, then, what does that matter? I’m only a C-U-S-T-O-M-E-R…

As for Apple CarPlay… Even as a user of Apple mobile devices (sorry, Android phones weren’t an option in early 2008), the notion that it (or any similar technology from any other manufacturer) might dictate my choices on the basis of its limitations and inadequacies has me say bollocks to that as driving force (sorry, bad pun).

*Can’t Be Arsed

Untrue statements?

Hello @paul-phillips-2. Your route looks like it should be very entertaining. I zoomed in on a few waypoints at random and found several that were not placed accurately on the road. Regardless of device or app used, this can cause problems in navigating a route if not corrected. Some of the waypoints checked cause a turn in the opposite direction to that clearly intended, followed by the need for a U turn after a short distance. I recommend you zoom to the maximum into each waypoint on your route and, where necessary, reposition accordingly.

If you do decide to use a map layer other than Open Street Map, as suggested by @Nick-Carthew, it would be best to change that first and then sort out the waypoints. Differences in spatial data between map layers can vary the position of roads enough to leave you back at square one if you don’t do it in that order.

Have a great trip.