[wplug] features valued in android (location aware) apps

[Rob]

Since android is linux based I'd consider this on-topic for the wplug group.  

I'm very much into cartography and land navigation and have been using GPS and writing apps to process cartographic data for many years.  To date I have not been impressed with the quality or features of smartphone GPS apps.  My general impression has been that 1) either the programmers who write the apps are not cartographers and lack good subject matter understanding, or 2) the capabilities of the hardware/os in android are not up to par with that in dedicated GPS units.

To stay professionally viable (I'm an embedded systems guy) I'm finally getting around to adding mobile device programming to my portfolio.

I'd like feedback from the android and GPS user communities regarding what they like and don't like about android (GPS or location aware) apps.  I'd like to create a grocery list of features that users value, and another of ones that folks think are frivolous or not well implemented in the android systems.

My hope is to come up with a higher quality android GPS app that can truly replace the dedicated consumer grade GPS for common uses like hiking, biking, geocaching, or motorized land/sea travel.