I have an update, but if you're a true GPSDrive fan, you may not like it.

Basically, I determined that GPSDrive was insufficient for my needs, or, more accurately, that it was over-sufficient for my needs (and ugly). It did too much and was too bloated and too difficult to enhance. Instead, I created my own Hildon-based GPS application called Maemo Mapper.

Maemo Mapper does most of the things that I wanted from GPSDrive, and it is much more memory and CPU efficient. Plus, it has several new features that I think really enhance the application.

It's almost ready for release - I'll post a topic about it when it's ready. If you want a sneak preview of it, there's a web page I'm about to publicize, but the DEB file is not yet available:

http://www.gnuite.com/nokia770/maemo-mapper/

Note: there are no screenshots available of the maps themselves, due to copyright concerns, but here's a hint about what it looks and feels like: think Hildonized 2D Google Earth (or Google Maps) plus GPS.

I am really excited about where this project is going. In fact, if it weren't for his vector-based requirement, I would soon be able to claim
thoughtfix's hypothetical bounty. thoughtfix, what if I told you that I could fit all of phoenix at multiple zoom levels in bitmap format in under 384 MB? I have the entire DC/Baltimore area in very high detail in 384 MB; add the rest of America at sub-highway-level detail, and it ways in at under 800 MB. And these maps look much better than anything the Nokia 770 (or TomTom, for that matter) could render in real time.

You can all see for yourself soon - I'm just finishing up my last round of testing. It has been hard to decide where to stop adding new features, but with a binary of size 40k, I think I've packed a very respectable number of features into a very low memory footprint. Of course, as the web page above indicates, I have plans for additional features, including the last two (other than vectorization) that would satisfy thoughtfix's bounty: on-the-fly route recalculation and audible warnings about upcoming turns, both features of which are implemented but not yet perfected and thus will not be available in the initial release (give me a couple more weeks).