I probably won't be trying this one out, not even the free one simply based on the screenshots and the fact that i'm beginning to play with the updated 1.1 versions of TopoPointUSA and iTopoMaps. The dev of iTopoMaps has been extremely open minded in listening to my suggestions and implementing them. One of the biggest frustrations of itopomaps was the insanely tedious way of trying to find the quad that you wanted to download from a big map blob. This would take a frustrating 15-30 minutes. Now you simply type in the lat/lon of a point and the app will download the quad the point is in, only takes a minute or two now. Most places you will want to hike or climb will have it's coordinates readily available on the internet. I find this method of locating and downloading the usgs quad you want, simply the fastest and most efficient. However, with the new changes, the UI is becoming a bit confusing with numerous icons, not a big deal since once you learn what icon corresponds to what, it's all in the past. Still, the direction she is taking with the app is extremely promising.
Also, TopoPointUSA continues to impress me. They were the only one of the three initial Topo map apps to get the search by gps coordinate to download topo maps concept correctly the first time around. what you should note though is that topopointusa does things a bit different though, you're not really downloading "quads' per say, but downloading a radius of x miles from the coordinate that you specify. I believe the app will stitch together pieces from multiple quads if it needs to. This is contratry to all the other topo map apps where you download specific quads. I'm not sure yet if the topopointusa method is a good or bad one. More time will be needed to play with the app, my only biggest fear is that without the ability to download whole specific quads, i could theoretically run the risk of moving out of the downloaded radius area and be screwed with no map. With the quad method of download, if you download the quad of interest plus all surrounding quads, you have a really huge area of coverage that you most likely won't run the risk of being stuck without a map. Also, topopointusa maps render much faster then the other topo map apps. And cached maps seem to render nearly instantaneous, contratry to the others. However, because of the unique non quad based nature of topopointusa, you can't simply begin "browsing" a far away quad from a map of the USA. You first need a coordinate then download the appropriate map and then you can begin browsing from there. Not a huge deal for me, cause i have better things to do then to look at a map of the usa and begin browsing topo maps at random from other states. However, if you did want to do this, it would be pretty difficult with this app. quad based topo map apps like itopomaps would allow you to do this since they provide you a bird's eye view of the states whereby you can attempt to find a quad (but as mentioned, if you are looking for a specific quad, not really easy to via this method) for viewing
Otherwise, topopoint usa's new update includes features that are nice such as a toggable display with course bearing, horizontal and vertical speed. I haven't been able to test this yet in the backcountry though. It also includes ability to auto create tracks (i.e. capture waypoints on a timed schedule). seems like people were asking for this. However not really needed for my purposes, since as mentioned before keeping the iphone on for several hours to capture a track will leave your device devoid of any battery power and you lost in the woods if you were to depend on it. I only needed this app to tell me where i was on a topo map and allow me to create and navigate to/from specific waypoints and this app does this quickly and efficient. They do mention that multiple map scale support which I believe would allow you to "zoom" into a map which the app currently doesn't allow you to do.
The one app I would NOT recommend to anyone is the Topo Maps app with is quite simply a POS. At only $3.99 it is by far the cheapest of the three, but you really do get what you pay for, which is not much. It looks like a 1.1 version was released but i've taken it off my phone after i first used it and it told me that my current location in the backcountry was off the downloaded quad map when in fact i was not. It did that multiple times. Totally and completely unreliable. Not to mention slow as all heck in bringing up maps.
I'm still going to keep both topomapusa and itopomaps apps on my iphone and continue to play with them. After the changes to itopomaps, there is currently no real clear winner here. Though for ease of use and simplicity and simple speed, i'll most likely continue to go to topomapusa first in a pinch. If you are looking for a more traditional quad based approach to topo maps, then itopomaps has definitely made enough significant improvements with their first update for me to say it's a solid app. And it can only get better.
