HERE Beta for Android Phones is now available on Google Play Store

Yea, it's a pain to find, here is the link:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.here.app.m...

The post seems to have happened twice, a moderator is welcome to delete the one below.

First strange thing about the program, it is only installable on one of my Android devices (a pre-paid cell with no service plan). It claims to not be compatable with my other devices including a Lenovo tablet with GPS, a EVGA Tegra tablet with GPS and extremely high specs, and another cell phone.

Yea, it's a pain to find, here is the link:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.here.app.m...

Yes, it was a PITA to find. Thank you.

I just installed it for a tryout and I'll try to report back later on how it works.
For off-line use the maps are downloadable by region (North and Central America at 7.1gb or Europe at 9.4gb), a single country or by state or region in that country. The USA map is pretty big (nearly 5gb) but you do get the option to install it to your SD card if you have one. If you don't have an SD card and your on-board memory is limited this may not be for you. State by state maps in the USA run from 123mb for the US Virgin Islands to 520mb for California. I downloaded the entire USA map since I have a 64gb SD card available.

Same situation here - Galaxy Nexus phone is OK, not offered for my Nexus 7 tablet

looks good.......thanks

It is pretty disappointing that it will not load to a tablet with GPS, particularly when it has an off-line feature. And when I have a hotspot that I could use if I did want data for traffic or other data needs. And it will not install to my Kyocera Android phone.

I've tried it on the phone that it will install to. It is OK but far from perfect. One big fail is that it doesn't keep the display on (even by a user selectable option in the app), it allows the screen to time out. Requiring nearly constant hand contact to keep the screen on is not safe while driving. So I'm not likely to do much more beta testing. I guess I could defeat that in the phone itself, but it is really something that the app should do so the phone works properly when Here is not in use without constantly having to fool with settings.

I'm sure that the app would run on tablets, it just isn't being allowed to download to them. If it wasn't for the screen blanking problem I would go ahead and backup the copy that I was able to download to my phone and put it on the tablet where I have a large enough SD card to do decent testing. But users with on;y tablets can't do that. And it really doesn't seem worth the effort.

Have you try to go under setting and then under security.

After that, you have to authorise your device to accept application that are not from play store.

I have to do that when Here was only available from nokia.

According the info listed on the link.
Requires Android 4.1 and up.

Have you tried side loading it to the tablet?

There are apps, like MyAppShare that will attempt to pull an app off of one Android device and allow you side load it to another. Did this with Microsoft Office Mobile app on my smartphone to get it loaded to my Nexus 7 tablet.

Both tablets fit that requirement, as does WAASup's Nexus 7 tablet.

As you yourself said, that's for apps not coming from the Google Market App, not needed here. And yes, I have that setting made.

I indicated in my previous post that I could do just that. It just doesn't seem worth doing, particularly with the app letting the screen blank out.

Works fine and installed with no problem on my Samsung Note 8.0 Wi-Fi only tablet. Selected the use offline option and downloaded the entire 5GB US map and the voices to the SD card.

It will be interesting to see how it compares to the Garmin Viago app and the maps should be the same because HERE supplies both maps.

Did a little minor navigation with it today using the offline map, and it went well. No hiccups, and smooth.

BTW, there is an update already on the Playstore.

As Juggernaut mentioned, there is a new version out today. There is no changelog posted at Google Play

Good news - the new version was offered as a download for my Nexus 7. So hopefully it will now work for Frovingslosh's tablet as well as others.

New Version - 1.0.234 beta wk50 39,412,633 bytes
Old Version  - 1.0.232 beta wk47 39,412,593 bytes

Yup, they are doing better with the compatible systems, it now will install to my Tegra tablet, (would also install to the Lenovo tablet but I have no reason to do that). However, with the larger screen I see another problem. My street shows a bend that isn't really there, and they extended the street way beyond the end of the real road. Not sure where they are getting their map data, as Open Street Maps and Google Maps don't make this mistake. Need to play with it more to see if the screen blanking is still a problem (and I expect it will be). Still planning on sticking with MapFactor Navigator as my first choice for off-line GPS map use.

You do realize this is where Garmin maps are from, right? HERE.

I would suggest this is merely teething problems for a new BETA app. It'll get better, so have patience. The downloadable maps are worth it alone.

My Garmin maps were far from perfect. They even connected two streets near me that were not really connected, giving false routing information. But the bend in my street was not there on my Garmin map when I first got the GPS and wasn't there after I got my free update. That was several years ago, I have not been buying Garmin map updates, and I guess they could have introduced more errors into the map, but I'm hard pressed to understand why they would deliberately place a bend that isn't there and extend the road a lot further than it should be. If these errors are being introduced as some form of being able to prove copyright violation, then both errors combined seems like overkill at the customer's expense.

In any case, the maps are flawed and, while I obviously haven't compared every street on the map, so far I like this map less than I like the free Open Street Map. So that makes it worth less than free to me. It isn't like this is the only option for downloadable off-line maps.

I don't see how it could be a teething problem with the new beta app. The road just bends when the real road is perfectly straight. That to me means bad map data, not a programming problem in the app. I can see that the app not being smart enough to keep the screen on could be an oversight that they might get around to fix, but the map being wrong just isn't an app problem, it is a data problem. And when my own little straight line suburban street is wrong, I have to wonder how many other streets are wrong too. If there are few errors the chances are extremely low that it would hit the street that I live on.

As for the bending road, is there a trail, or other 'path' that may have been mapped incorrectly causing the bend?

Regardless, I'll continue to use the app, and compare it to the nuvi when routing. It has traffic, speed limits, and current speed on the display. Not a bad deal for free.

I'm looking forward to this beta becoming mature as time goes on.

No, there is no factor that would contribute to the bend, nor to hitting one of the last houses at the end of the road and extending about 700 to 1000 feet past it. The road is just a clean simple straight line that ends at the correct place on my Garmin, on Open Street Maps and on Google.

I tried the app today with my Tegra tablet. One problem that was immediately apparent was that, when zoomed in tight, the position shown on the display lagged my actual position on the road by a significant amount.

My old nuvi 250, which has been discontinued 6 years now, is dead on. As I go through an intersection it shows me going through the intersection. It is so accurate that I even replaced the blue arrow head icon with one that defines the actual GPS position as being at the tip of the point, and I use that to know exactly where to turn. It has come in very handy when in a strange area and unsure if the turn to make is the street that I an at or one a block up. Here is nearly worthless for that. I can be past the intersection and then glance at the GPS screen and watch me approach and then go through it again. When I parked my car I looked at the display and saw my position update at least 4 additional times before it caught up with my real location.

I'm comfortable that this isn't an issue with the tablet, as my Tegra tablet is one of the fastest Android devices available. Barring far fetched theories that seems to leave the Here app as the source of this problem.

Also, the newer version still has the problem of allowing the screen to blank out. They really need to fix this or add an option to let the user elect to not have the screen blank out when the app is in use.

No lag on my Nexus 5, and the screen stays on.

Perhaps this is more a function of the GPS receiver than the processor in your Tegra.

Slight lag on my Nexus 7. The screen stay on though.

Well, WAASup is seeing the lag too, although it is hard to say if we are seeing the same amount. I would estimate my lag at a half block to a full block at 35-40 mph.

As to your screens staying on, what settings do you have in Android for SCREEN TIMEOUT under DISPLAY in SETTINGS? And, of course, minimize your touching of the screen during this test, you need to not touch it for longer than this timeout setting to see the blackout. If you don't have a timeout set here then your screen will not blank out no matter what app you are running. But apps that are designed properly and need to keep the screen on do keep it on. Media Players or the NetFlix viewer or other video players for example, since they are intended to let you watch the video without constantly fingering the screen, disable the screen blanking while in use (and when they end or lose control of the screen the screen blanks again). I like this feature, as it significantly saves power. I don't want to have to keep going into my settings to disable it just to run Here, and just as a media player disables blanking, I feel that Here should do it too. It isn't safe to have the user fingering the screen constantly to disable the blanking.

I very much doubt that it is the GPS chip causing the lag, and if you were zoomed too far out while testing you may not have spotted it. I'll do a simple test though, the next time that I have the tablet out for a drive I'll try a different application and see how closely it tracks. If it fails in the same way as Here fails then I'll concede that the lag could be the chip or some other part of Android, as unlikely as I feel that is. But if a different app can give me a current position as I pass an intersection and Here does not then I don't see any way that it could be a problem of any other part of the system than the Here app.

POI factory unresponsive, double post

My screen is set to 1 minute for sleep. But, the app prevents sleep, and I never have to touch the screen. HERE is zoomed in to roughly the 80 meter mark while in the city.

I'm on Lollipop 5.0, for reference.

Can't help on the screen blanker, Frovingslosh. But can you try an experiment? Can you go through and kill all the background apps running, then restart the tablet? Not reset. Then run your position lag tests?

Here had been run after a fresh boot, so there wasn't a lot of extra stuff running. While I had not gone through and killed all other tasks, and there should have been a few things running like the Gmail check, I do run a utility that keeps lots of things from starting automatically at boot and hogging resources.

But I did another test with MapFactor Navigator running as the GPS program one night last week when I went to dinner. A lot of other stuff had been running that afternoon and I didn't force anything to shut down. Still, MapFactor (using free Open Street Maps) tracked perfectly, showing me pass streets as I passed them, not several seconds later. At dinner I did shut the tablet down, but on the way home I again ran MapFactor and it again ran correctly, this time I ran HERE and AndroidTS GPS Test in the background (to attempt to maximize the load I put on the GPS part of Android). Again MapFactor ran as desired and expected, not with the lag that I see on HERE. So I'm left to conclude that the lag isn't due to my GPS chip, or to any other part of the Andriod system, but rather is a fault in the HERE app.

Oh well. It was worth a shot.

I tried HERE and it was very jumpy. It was like the direction of screen was moving about 5 degrees back and forth a couple times a second. Very annoying. I uninstalled it, maybe I will try again if a new version comes out.