What happened to OnX this year?

KHNC

WKR
Joined
Jul 11, 2013
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3,448
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NC
I have an old iphone that I use OnX on. Works great, I'm a little scared to upgrade now! The phone has OnX only, I download maps at home on wifi, then it's on airplane mode when not at home. I'll use this setup until the phone is 100% dead and buried :)
THis is a great plan, and exactly what i did this year when i upgraded my iphone. Used the old one just for OnX. No updates or anything since it was working fine.
 
Joined
Nov 20, 2018
Messages
889
Location
Wyoming
THis is a great plan, and exactly what i did this year when i upgraded my iphone. Used the old one just for OnX. No updates or anything since it was working fine.
I have an old iphone 5 that I use for onX. But my iphone 8 seems to do well and have no issues as well and it is due for an upgrade. I'll try out the 8 for the rest of the year and make sure it's reliable for next season. Not ideal I guess, but I have the extra phones doing nothing so it's sorta freeish solution.

Other advantage is that a lot of the ridges by my house have cell service (which is so weird since our service at the house is terrible). I just leave the phone that has service turned off unless there's an emergency...keeps me from getting work alerts and emails and calls while I'm trying my best to forget about work and pretend it doesn't exist until I get off the mountain :)
 

DerkPerk

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Jun 21, 2018
Messages
104
I use a galaxy 8 and was pretty frustrated with Onx. Hiked in 14 miles only to suddenly have my maps not work. Then throughout August and September the tracker frequently didn't work, and it would have difficulty keeping track of my location. I haven't had these issues before, but gps mapping is something I really need and want to be dependable. I also pay for a yearly subscription, but primarily use it 1 month out of the year. It is frustrating when it doesn't work that 1 month. I wish Onx would stand by their product and either offer refunds or extend the service due to malfunction.

Did you email them??? They will stand behind their product. I had an issue similar a year ago and still on my extended 50 state service extension.


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tdhanses

WKR
Joined
Sep 26, 2018
Messages
5,735
onX as an app, as a mapping tool, is straight trash. But I cannot live without their land ownership layers. They're just too good. None of their competitors are really focused on the hunting space, so they are reining champs when it comes to land ownership data. And onX unfortunately doesn't have the technical chops to build a feature-rich, high performance and RELIABLE suite of apps. Performance on desktop is also miserable. I keep a master of all my hunting data in caltopo and just cross reference into onx when I am looking at new areas.
Do more research, Gaia has tons of hunting layers and land owner data, more then OnX actually. Reason I dumped OnX was it wouldn’t show land owner info but Gaia somehow had it, I got the county doesn’t have excuse from OnX and no reply from them when I sent a screen shot of Gaia having it, that was years ago Though.

Might be worth trying a second app for $39.99 for all 50 states and comparing them side by side.
 

MT_Wyatt

WKR
Joined
Aug 20, 2014
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1,945
Location
Montana
Read this thread, and it should be stated that if you've had no issues with the App, that does not really negate the negative feedback people are posting.

I've used it since the App first came out - downloading maps has always been hit or miss, but this year, "updating" downloaded maps has been a huge issue (ie not working, or saying it worked, then actually not being able to use it offiline). I got through it all, but for every new or update to an offline map, I'll be it took 6-10 tries.

I also had a ton of waypoints just magically vanish, which is really disappointing. Using an iPhone XR. I would agree with the general sentiment that progress is great, but man it has been a bit painful this year, and for the first time, beyond what I think is acceptable.
 

mvmnts

WKR
Joined
Feb 2, 2017
Messages
331
Location
Denver
Did you email them??? They will stand behind their product. I had an issue similar a year ago and still on my extended 50 state service extension.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I've had similar problems, and honestly it doesn't matter what they do after the fact. If I go into the backcountry relying on onx as a tool and it fails, it's already too late. That's the #1 problem, it is just not dependable. I'm sure there's more out there who never have an issue, but the number of people who do, is way too many. And when your mapping solution fails in the field, it can be catastrophic. Fortunately I've always brought backups, but it sucks having to build out maps and waypoints twice because I can't rely on this expensive app to work properly.
 

mvmnts

WKR
Joined
Feb 2, 2017
Messages
331
Location
Denver
Do more research, Gaia has tons of hunting layers and land owner data, more then OnX actually. Reason I dumped OnX was it wouldn’t show land owner info but Gaia somehow had it, I got the county doesn’t have excuse from OnX and no reply from them when I sent a screen shot of Gaia having it, that was years ago Though.

Might be worth trying a second app for $39.99 for all 50 states and comparing them side by side.
I'll give it a try. I am not a fan of gaia in general, but it's been a long time since I've used them. I really strongly prefer caltopo but their land ownership layers suck and when I tried to tell them that diplomatically they were incredulous that their competitors were doing it better.
 

tdhanses

WKR
Joined
Sep 26, 2018
Messages
5,735
I'll give it a try. I am not a fan of gaia in general, but it's been a long time since I've used them. I really strongly prefer caltopo but their land ownership layers suck and when I tried to tell them that diplomatically they were incredulous that their competitors were doing it better.
Haha, well no one wants to hear their product isn’t competitive. Gaia may not have the cool interface but wow does it have tons of layers and nice that it even lets you add your own layers.
 

mvmnts

WKR
Joined
Feb 2, 2017
Messages
331
Location
Denver
Haha, well no one wants to hear their product isn’t competitive. Gaia may not have the cool interface but wow does it have tons of layers and nice that it even lets you add your own layers.
I'll give it a try. I'd be a lot easier on onx if it weren't a $100 year. I really tried to illustrate the issue, because I really want caltopo to be the best at everything, and they're close. Seems like two solutions is gonna be the way forward for me. Redundancy isn't a bad thing I guess.
 
Joined
Feb 18, 2013
Messages
1,136
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Texas
I switched to Basemap and haven't regretted it yet. I'm not thrilled with the lack of 3D in offline mode for Basemap, and their PC mapping is glitchy. But the offline maps work every time, the tracking is good, my markers are always super accurate, the app doesn't lag out when I try to open it in low cell service areas like OnX did... and it's soooo much cheaper.
 

OkayestHNTR

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Jan 20, 2020
Messages
144
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CA......
onX map worked flawless last year and every time I used it up to this season. My issues were minimal, but basically it would lag when using and nearly drained my battery over the course of the day. I noticed prior to season there wasn't a "3D" option, but after I have a "3D" button. Thinking that during one of my moves I hit a faint signal and it was attempting to update. Haven't had an issue since and when I reached out to onX about the issue they were responsive. Still my go to app, but it definitely showed me I need to run two platforms like Mark Livesay recommends.
 
Joined
Dec 28, 2015
Messages
852
My dad had tons of issues with OnX on our elk hunt. Waypoints disappearing, maps not loading, offline maps disappearing, navigation being completely off.

Interestingly enough, I had zero issues and we have the exact same phone.
 
Joined
Nov 20, 2018
Messages
889
Location
Wyoming
Ok now I’ve been cursed after saying I’ve had no issues.

It’s not a big deal but I keep turning off a lot of waypoints at night when I check my map for a morning hunt. When I wake up the Map is cluttered with way points.
 
Joined
Mar 15, 2020
Messages
44
onX map worked flawless last year and every time I used it up to this season. My issues were minimal, but basically it would lag when using and nearly drained my battery over the course of the day. I noticed prior to season there wasn't a "3D" option, but after I have a "3D" button. Thinking that during one of my moves I hit a faint signal and it was attempting to update. Haven't had an issue since and when I reached out to onX about the issue they were responsive. Still my go to app, but it definitely showed me I need to run two platforms like Mark Livesay recommends.
To keep OnX from updating in the field, I turn updates off and keep it in airplane mode unless I briefly need service. The battery also lasts longer that way.
 
Joined
Feb 12, 2018
Messages
986
I've had tons of issues with it this year on my phone. I've had to reload it on my phone twice. It hangs up and freezes. Not sure why, but it is a pain. Map sizes (MB) change all the time. updates to maps are constant, etc.

It's frustrating and if I could find an alternative I would jump ship.
 

Deezly

FNG
Joined
Sep 22, 2020
Messages
5
We've had repeated issues with onx as well. I was thinking it was just me but it looks as though it wasn't. I have been using base map as a backup but haven't spent enough time in it to fell 100% on it yet

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def90

WKR
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Aug 12, 2020
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1,590
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Colorado
Worked fine for me all through Sept using offline maps and everything else. Use a Motorola Droid.
 
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