Good! I will proceed with the update - just have to ensure that the timeout for connection would work and then get a new release out.

In reality, these efforts are combined already. Together with @Karry we work on the offline part of the maps/navigation app. We use the same backend linbrary - libosmscout - and improve it together with several others. Recently, we worked on different aspects with me focusing on search and @Karry just finished a great work on rendering speedup. Corresponding changelog is at https://github.com/Framstag/libosmscout/commits/master .

I would still have to work on search and make it faster and, hopefully, occupy less storage space. That would be my focus as soon as we sort out the distribution of the maps, with @MartinK offering a lot of help. Before that, @Karry actually implemented and showed how such distribution can be done for his OSM Scout.

Notice that we also incorporate developers that are not working/using Sailfish. Main developers of libosmscout and libpostal are working on Linux, so there are even more people involved.

While @Karry works on GUI of his application, OSM Scout Server relies on Poor Maps (@otsaloma) and/or modRana (@MartinK). The whole idea behind working on the server was to combine the efforts of different developers and bring parts developed for offline maps to the map applications that we had already. I think all in all there is a fast progress on the front of maps/navigation [wanted to continue using a word soon, but it should be probably banned in SFOS universe].

Yes, my idea is that, after 0.7, having self imported maps would be relatively hard (read impractical). This is due to difficulties on keeping dependencies between libosmscout/libpostal/geocoder-nlp and whatever fancy backend we would throw into the mix. I would suggest to try without self-imported maps for few releases and see if it is OK. If users would not like it after that, I would have to reconsider and make a simplish way to use custom imported maps.

Navigation app - help @MartinK and @otsaloma. OSM Scout Server does provide routes and Poor Maps / modRana can already show them. At present, Poor Maps is the best for navigation with its full navigation GUI during a drive. For me, the main missing part is rerouting in Poor Maps. After that, voice guidance. As far as I understood, rerouting code is already somewhere in modRana, but its not exposed yet. So, we have to be patient and help the devs as much as we could.