Support
Roadbook '71 · iPhone and CarPlay
If nothing here answers it, write to hello@glue.blue. It is a small app and a real person reads the mail.
Getting started
- Get a GPX onto the phone: open it from the Files app, or send it to Roadbook '71 from the share sheet in Mail, Messages, or whatever recorded it. Try sample.gpx if you want to look around first; it is a real 45.7 km loop in the Belgian Ardennes.
- Tap Compute route. A 100 km loop takes a few minutes. The result is cached against the file, so you only pay for it once.
- Tap Start. On a loop you join at the point nearest you, drive the full circle, and arrive back at the join.
Frequently asked
The route deviates from my recording.
Turn-by-turn instructions can only be given for roads Apple's map knows about, so the app matches your track to that road network. Where it cannot find a road route that stays inside the corridor around your line, it keeps your line instead and goes quiet along that stretch, rather than sending you somewhere else. Those stretches are drawn in their own colour, measured and listed on the route screen before you set off.
Two things you can do about a stretch you do not like: retry that stretch on its own, which asks again with denser waypoints; or drop a waypoint pin on the track to force the route through a particular spot.
What is the difference between the two kinds of warning?
A stretch with no turn-by-turn means guidance goes silent there and the drawn line is all you get. It is shown wide and solid so you cannot miss it. A bridged dropout is the opposite: your recording had a hole in it (a lost signal), and the app routed across the gap by road. The instructions there are real; what is uncertain is whether the original ride actually went that way. It is drawn thin and dashed, because painting it like the first would have you expecting silence through a stretch that talks.
How long does computing a route take?
A 100 km loop is a few hundred chained requests to Apple's servers, paced so they are not refused, so it takes minutes rather than seconds. The route on screen is drivable early and improves as it refines, and if you cancel or lose the connection partway, the next attempt resumes from where it stopped rather than paying for the whole thing again. Reopening a track you have already computed is instant.
Where does the loop start?
Wherever you are. A ring's recorded start is just where the original recording began, which is rarely useful, so starting a drive rotates the loop to the point on it nearest you. You drive the full circle from there and arrive back at that same point. If the track is not a loop, the app aims the first leg at the nearest point on it instead.
Can I stop partway and continue later?
Yes. A drive in progress is written to disk as it goes, so it survives the app being closed or terminated. Pick it up an hour later or three days later, from wherever you happen to be. Progress stays inked onto both the route and your original recording.
Can I edit the route?
Only by pinning waypoints. Tap a spot on the track to pin it, and the route is forced through there when it is rebuilt. There is no full route editor; the recording is meant to be the thing you edit, in whatever recorded it.
There is no CarPlay icon.
Open the app once on the phone and grant location access first, because CarPlay will not show an app that has never run. Then unplug and reconnect, or restart the head unit. If it still does not appear, check that Roadbook '71 is not hidden in Settings → General → CarPlay → your car.
There is no voice.
Check the phone is not in silent mode, and that the car's audio source is actually CarPlay or Bluetooth rather than radio. The app deliberately only takes the audio session while it is speaking, so that your music is not ducked for the whole drive. That means a prompt that never arrives is silence rather than a pause in the music. There is also a mute control on the driving screen; check it is not on.
Guidance stops when I put the phone away.
Set location access to Always in Settings → Roadbook '71 → Location. With While Using, iOS suspends the app once it is backgrounded and the guidance goes with it.
Where do I get a GPX?
Anything that writes one will do. Record on the phone with Open GPX Tracker; export an activity from Strava (⋯ → Export GPX) or Komoot; pull a ride off a Garmin or Wahoo unit; or draw a route on a mapping site and export it. Tracks with timestamps and tracks without both work.
Does it work outside Belgium?
Anywhere Apple Maps has road data, which is most places. The app was built and tested on Belgian and Ardennes roads, so that is where it has the most miles on it.
What does it cost?
Nothing. There is no subscription and no in-app purchase.