Software review : Mapopolis for Microsoft Smartphone, part 1 of 2 - usage without GPS
After Pocket Streets this is another mapping software for Microsoft Smartphone, this time with full support for Bluetooth GPS and more fascinating features... Version of this page: 2.
We are reviewing here Mapopolis software and maps for Microsoft Smartphone. We are using here, as an example, area of Nice and Cannes in France - the area, where we were lately participating in a the biggest in the world event devoted exclusively to cell phones: 3GSM Congress! The event itself took place in Palace of Festivals (Palais Des Festivals) in Cannes - the same place, where famous Cannes Film Festival takes place. We however, lived not in Cannes, but in a nearby city - Nice. City of Nice is famous from the Nice Treaty - one of the biggest milestones in EU history, but above all hotels in Nice were cheaper than in Cannes.
So if you would like to get from the place of the 3GSM congress to the Cannes train station, you would have to proceed as following: first with cursor you need to select the source for the route:
... then you have to select through left soft-key "Route From Here" menu position:
... then you should select the target of the route with a cursor:
... and then "Route To Here" menu position, from the left soft key:
The route is being calculated very quickly and the route, together with instructions appears:
The panel with instructions for the route allows you to virtually follow the route (cursor down and up) and thus have a look up.
You can also see the whole route at once by seleting "Show Whole Route":
... so here you can see route from Palace of Festivals (location of 3GSM congress to Cannes main train station):
And here is another route, this time from the Palace of Festivals in Cannes to our hotel in Nice:
Here is another example of the route following with a help of the Mapopolis:
And here you can see that actually you can rotate the map to angle that you wish:
This map rotation works very fast and is extremely useful to better orientate yourself in the area.
When you press the action key (the middle of the joystick or in the middle of the cursor keys) then you can see such small pop-up arrows:
Here are the standard key mappings, where keys 1, 2 and 3 are the most frequently used ones:
Mapopolis offers fantastic precision. You can select invidual streets (here: "Buttura Rue" in Cannes):
... and apart from landmarks (like train station, or some major building) you can select also indvidual houses by street name and house number (here: house numbers 6 and 8):
The Mapopolis seems to be much better than Microsoft´s Pocket Streets and on top of that it supports also GPS car navigation (mostly with help of Bluetooth GPS receivers). However also without GPS receiver this program is extremely useful. It has map rotation feature, and ability to find even house numbers. This program rocks!
To download this program, map for this program or to purchase better maps, click here. To get some more information about this program you can also view user manual of this excellent program here.
That´s it for the first part of the review - Mapopolis for Microsoft Smartphone - part 1 - without GPS. In the next part we will be describing GPS functionalities:
Coming soon: Software review : Mapopolis for Microsoft Smartphone, part 2 of 2 - GPS functionalities
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