Welcome to the future…
The future of the consumer business of Ordnance Survey (OS) that is..
Just in time the OS has launched an app for iOS, with Android in the pipeline, that demonstrates there is a future role of the agency in the post paper map age.
For a number of years the OS has relied on apps produced by it’s partners to distribute its mapping products on PC”s and the increasing important market of mobile devices.
The distribution of OS maps digitally is strategically important to the agency as it represents the future where paper maps are increasingly a niche specialised product, expensive and difficult to buy outside of specialist stores.. The only surprise therefore is how long it has taken the OS to enter this market, and the app in my opinion is a really good first effort.
The OS has wisely integrated the purchase of mapping data into the Apple Appstore add-on process which although it means paying a margin to Apple on every sale, it makes the app from the users perspective very easy to use, almost too easy to pay £2.49 for a tile of 1:25:000 mapping.
The mapping is on the expected high quality scanned produced at a high enough resolution to replicate the paper product, and of course you get all the benefits you would expect in terms of GPS and track creation functionality.
A less obvious highlight is the OS Gazetteer powered search function which allow you to search for place name text from the maps themselves, a simple function in an app, but a great advantage over paper maps.
Welcome to your future OS, I just hope you fully embrace it !
Written and submitted from home (51.425N, 0.331W)
