Start from anywhere, results on the map, and the screen stays on

Testers last had build 13 on iPhone and release 8 on Android, both from 6 September. Everything here came from the emails of the week that followed.

New: start from anywhere

The route card has a "From" row. Tap it to pick a starting point: search for a place, choose Home or Work, or press and hold on the map. The route is recomputed from there, with a dot marking the start, and pressing Start still hands guidance to the phone's own position. This was the most-asked question of the week, and the answer used to be "you can't".

New: search results on the map

Every result gets a numbered red marker, and the same number sits beside it in the list. The map frames the results together with you, so you can see at a glance which ones lie in the direction you are already going. Tap a marker or a row for that place's card. Addresses in the list wrap to two lines now instead of being cut off.

A tester searching for a chain with five branches sorted by distance put it well: the nearest one is not always the convenient one.

New: what comes after the next turn

Under the instruction, and under the lane band when it shows, a smaller "Then" row shows the turn after next and the distance between the two, whenever it follows within a kilometre. Knowing the second turn is a left tells you which lane to take for the first.

New: the speed limit is a sign

It moved from the sheet at the bottom to the bottom-left corner of the map, and it looks like the one at the kerb: MAXIMUM over the number, km/h below, or SPEED LIMIT if you have chosen miles. It also comes from the route itself now rather than from a lookup every few hundred metres, so it changes the instant you cross into a new stretch, and it shows nothing rather than guess where the map has no limit.

Fixed

• The screen stays on while navigating. Three of you had the display go dark on a dash mount or a bike. The app now keeps the screen awake for exactly as long as it is guiding you.
• Large text sizes. If your phone uses a larger text size, the Start button could be pushed off the bottom of the route screen. The route list now scrolls with Start pinned below it, and text across the app scales within limits instead of truncating everything.

Changed: traffic while browsing is a choice

Live traffic shows on your route and while navigating. While you are just looking at the map it is off unless you turn on "Live traffic while browsing" in Settings. Incidents and closures have their own switch, off by default. This build resets both settings once.

The reason is money. Traffic tiles were drawn for everyone all the time, including people only browsing, and they were doubling the map bill. Let's talk about money says more.

Changed: live charger counts on the card

Charging stations show how many connectors are free when you open their card, not for every search result. It was a third of our metered map calls for counts nobody looked at.

Also

• The app is called Maple Maps, with a space, on your home screen now.
• Nothing about "Count me as a user" changed. The switch is still in Settings.

Known gaps

• CarPlay is built but waiting on Apple's approval, so it is not in this build. Android Auto's car-screen map is still unfinished and stays off.
• Landscape is not supported yet. It is on the list.
• Transit directions are not in the app and are not planned for launch.

Reply to the build's feedback or email hello@maplemaps.ca. Screenshots help enormously.