Finding an address follows the usual drilldown system of city, address, and then house number. There is no facility to search for a street across an entire country.

You can search for Points of Interest near your current or another location, but again this takes the traditional category-oriented approach, with no keyword option. For the latter, however, there is also a Local Search, which provides freeform keyword searching up to 20km around your current or a nominated location.

Since searches and routing can be performed offline, you can be truly off the grid and still find your way. Even the Local Search works for mapping areas you have downloaded.

Zooming and scrolling around maps can be more responsive with a locally stored map, as there’s no need to wait for your data connection to kick in when you go past the area currently downloaded dynamically.

Once you have found a location, you can share it or your current location via email and Facebook. The end result is a link that points to the mapping section of skobbler’s website, which recipients can then use to plot a route for themselves.

However, it’s worth noting that ForeverMap 2 is not a sat-nav application. For that, skobbler has the standalone GPS Navigation 2 app.

There are still routing abilities, but they are not turn-by-turn, even if you do get a readout of distance and time to destination. You can choose routes for pedestrians, bikes and cars, switchable in the Map Settings. The map remains in 2D mode, rather than 3D, but you can turn on the compass so your heading is always the top of the map.

You can adjust the map appearance for different conditions, with a Night mode, a Gray mode, and a colour-saturated Outdoor mode, designed to be more visible in bright sunlight.

It should be pointed out that Nokia’s Ovi Maps for its Symbian devices, reworked as Drive on Windows Phone, offers similar offline facilities and fully developed navigation, but you will need a compatible Nokia phone in each case.

Should I buy Skobbler ForeverMap 2?

At just £1.99, with regular discount offers, free updates and no further fees, ForeverMap 2 is worth taking a punt on just in case it could be useful. It might not be a replacement to a dedicated sat-nav app or device, or a detailed tourist guidebook. But as you are likely to always have your phone with you, it makes a great backup. Make sure you download necessary maps in advance of a journey, and you can travel knowing you will never get lost – unless you mislay your phone!

Verdict

Capable offline mapping makes ForeverMap 2 a good alternative to Google or iOS maps when travelling internationally, and the new Travel Guide adds useful information that is also available offline.

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