GIS Kit App Reviews

This is the most complete and best developed app about geo I have ever seen! Makes each cent worth!

First of all, the App offers good prerequisite to collect field data with offline maps and many GIS related features. But it is extremely unstable! Im not able to work more than five minutes without a collapse of the App. It happens in any occasion, and is highly annoying because often data gets lost! The App-Support is no help, here is a 4-week-old reaction of the Developer Team: “Unfortunately, it will take some time to correct these issues.” So there is no prospect of an end, and it sounds like a bad joke for a 100€ App! Honestly this is the most labile App ive ever loaded in the App-Store. Keep your hands off!

I bought GIS Kit approx. 13 months ago and there hasnt been a single substantive update since. The only updates have been bug fixes and cosmetic tweaks and that is extremely disappointing given that I paid the hefty price tag more for the apps considerable potential then for its current set of features. One of the most perplexing things is that Garafka makes a product called GPS Kit, as opposed to GIS Kit, and it has better capabilities (e.g., track logs). I have GIS Kit on both my iphone and my ipad and havent used it all field season despite the fact that it burns my #$@#$ that I paid that much for an app. I contacted the developers on multiple occasions to ask about potential features and they never ever had anything intelligible to say. Finally, apple products simply cannot collect professional GPS-GIS data because Apple doesnt allow the necessary bluetooth protocols, i.e., the serial port protocol needed to permit survey grade GPS units to connect to iOS devices. Wait for the Windows 8 devices.

Very functional mobile GIS application. Easily collect and capture spatial and attribute data with GPS or manually. GPS navigation a breeze. Data import and export also quick and easy. Great selection of base maps which can be easily buffered for offline field data capture. Auto capture of GPS tracks while you collect your other data. Easily toggle your data layers on and off and set symbology and transparency as required.

Ive been using this app to do my forest technology & GIS labs at Vancouver Island University, so far its worked really well, very easy in the field, easy to build a new feature template on the fly when you want to capture some data you didnt expect. Earlier versions had some crashing issues, but they were addressed very quickly by the developers. It could use a few enhancements, but it seems the app is growing, and the developers are very responsive to feedback. Being a student I use the non-pro version and am able to move shapefiles/geodatabase features in and out via KMZ files. Not ideal as the field data gets formatted very ugly on the way from the iOS device back into ESRI, but nothing too horrible. I guess the pro version saves you this step since i believe it exports shapefiles. I looked at several other iOS GIS field data collection apps, but this ones interface is the best in my opinion.

I probably spent $100 on $2-$5 apps trying to find one that worked well with shape files and offline satellite images. All the other apps were lacking in one way or another. This app has worked flawlessly and is very stable. If you compare the price to an ArcMap license, it is a steal of a deal. I finally have access to offline maps in the field with all my critical shapefiles from the office..... On an iPhone 4s.

Replaces the bulk of features offered by ArcPad and other professional GIS data capturing software; only, you dont have to go to university for 5 years to know how to use it! It is as intuitive as Apple products themselves. ArcGIS is a dinosaur; offering an alternative to their crap is Heaven sent! I love the export options too. My only complaint there is that you cant export all your shapes at once. I dont know what the heck that winer critic is going on about; I paid $400 for the Pro version and, over the past 2 years, I have made my money back from it almost a thousand times over..., I guess this software just doesnt meet his specific needs. Thank God, professional grade GIS products like lasers and GPS receivers are finally being made to work with iOS! I used to use sub-metre stuff all the time, but I found that most of the users I supervised, were pathetic at achieving sub-metre accuracy regardless of the equipment capabilities. So using the primary method of coordinate capture that this offers (positioning the screen as per imagery background), combined with laser trigonometry, works much better. And of course, you still have the traditional GPS capturing methods with this software too. Good stuff Garaffa

Crashes, consistently in line features when using Record to GPS. I have many small issues with this program but crashing and losing precious data on a day to day basis is costing my company money and my mapping technicians are losing faith in this program. We upgraded to pro but I cant leave a comment there since it was an in app purchase, So I will leave this here. We are consistently losing data and we need to redo line features often , which is quite difficult in some of the terrain I map in. This is the most expensive app we use and it is the one with the least customer support. There is no crash reporting , if there was I am sure this problem would be addressed. Please fix. contact Geochange at gmail dot com

Hey this app was my all time favourite field data collection app but keeps crashing now. When are you guys going to fix the stability issue? It has been a problem for over a year. Bummer man! Where is the support? Dont let this great app digress into obscurity!

What can I say, $100 is worth every penny. No subscription fees. Switching to this from wolfgis pro for sure

This App has its issues and could be much better. The best GIS App on the market is WolfGIS Apex.

Finally a GIS app that does exactly what it says. Great interface, fast, powerful and easy to use. Tons of pre loaded features and attributes, and super easy to create new ones as needed. A little pricy, but worth every bit. Cant wait for the Pro features to come out.

I own several GIS apps due to my work. We work in the field everyday collecting field data and we are trying to find the best app that will help us do our job better. I think GIS kit has potential but its not perfect. So with that said I will re-think my 1 star rating because Ive used the app very extensively over the last few weeks. But I will not change my rating of ArcGIS because theyre over rated and too expensive. About 80% of the people that use it only use 20% of its capabilities. There are a lot of great GIS apps out their, my advice would be try as many as you can and pick the right ones that fit your needs because all are a little different in there own way.

I have had this app downloaded about 4 weeks and am very satisfied with how well it is working in both online and offline field use. I use ArcView and it is of great help when preparing the numberous features have been added to Gis Kit. We are in the oil and gas and real estate business and really needed an app that used the the great features of the iPad. I bought my iPad 2 especially for the field use and have both a keyboad folio and a case expecially for field use. Pros: Version 1.9.4 is uploading my shape files and they are displaying on the map beautifully. The edit tools are easy to adjust for both points & polygons. It is very easy to display points or polygons so they will stand out on the map and are easy to find in the field. The ESRI software and recommended hardware are very expensive and Gis Kit does a good job and saves a bunch of money. Because accuracy is of the upmost importance in our businesses, GIS Kit has the potential to revolutionize what we do. Cons: It would be great to choose any attrubute field as the label on the map. (Shape files) If an existing attruibute field could be amended to have website links, this could save copy and paste to achieve the same result (Shape files) If point files could use a field value to determine the symbol to use, then points could be labeled. (Shape Files) I know that the cons will probably represent future updates, but look forward to these improvements. I really like this app and we should profit from it. I will do an update to this reveiw as I gain more experience using it in the field.

I have written the developer several times but havent seen any improvement in capabilities. Each time the developer gives brief replies or states "Ill pass your suggestion on to the development team" and never gives another update or status of any feature requests. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ive been trying to export and import files using GISPro, GPSKit and ArcGIS Explorer. While exporting large files via e-mail the program (GISPro and GPSKit) will close without notice. I learned by reading your blog that this is a known problem and that exporting large files via iTunes works better. Q1: Do you have a user forum for exchanging other tips and information about using GIS Pro? Here are some more general questions that I have. I think these could be answered by other experienced users. Is there a way to order which items appear on top of other items? I purchased GIS Kit then upgraded to GIS Pro. My icon still shows GIS Kit although within the program at the first window it shows GIS Pro. Is there a tutorial on how to create and import custom icons? What other URL map sources are there that can be use with GIS Pro? Q2: Is there a way to export and import maps without lousing Feature Class types and attributes? Ive been using GISPro for a wile now and Im starting to get use to it. Ive created my own set of Feature Classes. Ive had a problem exporting maps and importing them back into GISPro. Each map item gets imported as a "Waypoint Subclass". All the fields are still there and pictures remain attached. When I change the Features class back to its original sometimes the fields come up as duplicate and have a * added to the the end of the field name identifying it as an attribute that is not part of the feature class and will not be exported with SHP files. The Photo attribute is usually imported correctly. Almost all other attributes do not. Attributes that I created as lists or date do not import back in as a list. Ive experienced this problem when exporting/importing from GISPro/GISPro (KMZ, GPX, Shape), GISPro/ArcGIS (KMZ, GPX, Shape), GPSKit/GISPro (KMZ, GPX). Is this a known issue? Some issues that should be fixed. Issue: GPS Pro crashes. When importing a new file, I swipe to delete listed files to keep phone memory clean. When the last file is deleted program closes. Issue: Project Name keeps changing. When creating new projects and renaming them, name change affects other projects. There are 3 fields that I can change the name and it changes the name of other project name fields. 1) when at the very first window (where you can swipe to change programs) you can click on the project name and it will allow you to edit the program name. 2) after selecting a project by taping on the picture of the project map, when the list [Layers, Feature Classes, Map Settings, Offline Maps, Project Units, GPS Settings] is visible, you can click on the project name and it will allow you to edit the program name. 3) When you select Layers the project name is still visible at the top, you can click on the project name and it will allow you to edit the program name. Suggested Updates: 1) Upgrade feature class field options to include video and audio/memo files? 2) Add the option to re-use a Free Hand Area for Caching a region using different settings (i.e. Selected Levels)? 3) Provide desktop based version of program for downloading offline maps and then transferring of the maps to mobile device? 4) Add an options for icon sizes? Maybe a scaling option? 5) Add the ability to create lines via GPS and create points, other lines, shapes manually at the same time (like GPS Kit)? 6) Add meta data to the points that create the GPS generated lines to support functions available in GPS Kit like "Color by Speed", "Color by Elevation". It would be nice to have GPS tracks created with either of these two options be able to export to GIS Pro with the color gradient. 7) Add a map layer with weather station actual location. Not sure how this options works with GPS Kit, you state that the weather information is provided by the national weather service I dont see where exactly is the station that generates the information is located? 8) Is it possible to take a snapshot of the weather station conditions (graphs included) and add this info to a way point? P.S. Barometric pressure needs to be added to the list. 9) You have Wave Height. Is it possible to add USGS stream gagging station information? 10) Add an option to allow you to over zoom in on a Tile without getting the gray "Map data not yet available" tile? Maybe add a icon to the corner of the scree that indicates that you are zoomed in as close as possible. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ And the list keeps growing... 11) DropBox iCloud backups?

I have used mapping applications for over 15 years that cost thousands of dollars and have been so frustrated that the leading software was so hard to use and many times required an expensive programmer. This application is so intuitive, easy to use and feature rich that we have converted all of our forestry mapping software data off the big name multi thousand dollar software package onto GIS Kit. For our conservation property we have been able to set up multiple layers, that can be toggled on or off, to include everything from property lines, roads, trails, buildings, gates, bridges, forestry operations, cellar holes (historic homesteads), and even where edible wild mushrooms traditionally grow. We have finally been able to share our mapping data with our family members and they can use it with GIS Kit almost immediately. We have made more progress on our mapping projects using this app in the last couple of months than we have in the last 15 years combined with another expensive software package. We are using this application to manage large conservation properties, forestry, wildlife management, land planning and to create a legacy historical record of these property. We would highly recommend this product.

This team has the most responsive and intelligent app writers for any mobile device on the market. The layer management and export functions make this THE app for field recordation on just about any project, whether it be environmental, construction or preliminary engineering. For more accurate location based writing, use a Bluetooth GPS device. With iOS 6, there are map jumps that cause it to effectively snap-to-grid. Im sure that will be fixed very soon. (Staying with iOS 5 will prevent that issue for now.) Compared to the cost and training required for adequate options to this app on the iPad/iPhone, this app is really a no-brainer. Really, there is productivity possible in this app that cannot be replaced by anything else in the mobile market.

Incredible waste of money. Zoom engine is dragging, load images extremely slow, pan is jumping. Tagging is not accurate, nor it is precise. Not enough sources, addition of extra sources unclear, technical support is non-responsive. Application hangs up and drops out on different phones. Plus button does not work well on iPhone 5.

I used GIS Kit for work (Im employed by a large agriculture/land development company) nearly everyday since I bought it in early 2012. A few months ago I updated to the Pro version, since I wanted to share feature sets between my iPhone and iPad. The program is a fundamental part of my workflow now. The interface is very intuitive, and it turns my iOS devices into full featured data collectors. If you are looking for a professional-grade, stand-alone product (with the added plus of being able to cache an unlimited amount of offline image/map data) then GIS is for you. Customer service is good. The developer just updated versions about a week after I mentioned a bug to them.

What can I say, $100 is worth every penny. No subscription fees. Switching to this from wolfgis pro for sure