Quick shoutout for Trail Sense for Android. Designed to function offline, lots of cool navigation/basic tools I haven’t used outside of the GPS and compass, reasonable permissions, etc. One of those “You don’t know how useful it is until you don’t have connectivity” things.
Comment on I would personally just treat whatever direction I'm facing at the time as North and go from there.
AA5B@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Worst case scenario, download a compass app for your phone, but watch out for scams that will require heavy network traffic
iPhone/appleWatch may have one already, but I don’t know about android
Cracks_InTheWalls@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
AA5B@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Excellent! I tried a couple trail apps for iPhone without any luck - they didn’t have local trails or cost too much for how occasionally I’d use it. Lately I have been doing short local hikes on well marked trails
superkret@feddit.org 2 days ago
I feel like while your phone has battery, there are easier ways to navigate than a compass.
potpotato@lemmy.world 2 days ago
No data, no map.
GPS can give your coordinates, but that’s pointless unless you walk a bit and translate the direction.
Compass uses most of its power for the screen.
superkret@feddit.org 2 days ago
Do you have a minute to talk about Openstreetmap? You can download the map before you head out, then navigate without data connection.
FireRetardant@lemmy.world 2 days ago
This requires foresight. Most people don’t plan on getting lost.
Omgpwnies@lemmy.world 2 days ago
google also allows offline caching, but also needs to be set up ahead of time. AFAIK once you set a region to download, it will update that cache regularly.
I would expect this is a feature that most map apps would offer
potpotato@lemmy.world 2 days ago
iOS has a built in compass app.
nepenthes@lemmy.world 2 days ago
So does Android. This phone is old and it’s on the edge menu (Samsung).screenshot of compass face