Google turn-by-turn GPS Navigation working again

[Update 2009-12-20: if you want simple instructions and links to the hacked maps files that allow Google GPS Navigation outside the US to work now, then go here. I did and on my rooted phone I had it going in 5 minutes....though, with my rooted phone, I had to deal with three errors / ambiguities in the instructions (documented below).

The instructions linked to have a few errors / abiguities - at least with respect to my rooted HTC Magic running Wes Garner's Build 10:

1. The command "adb shell find /system /data -name \*google\*maps.apk\* -o -name Maps.apk -delete" didn't work for me until I changed "\*google\*maps.apk\*" to be "\*google\*Maps.apk\*". Note the change in the capitalisation of the word "maps".

2. The name of the hacked v3.3.1 Maps file you download from the link may not be exactly the same as in the instructions. It wasn't for me. When you execute the "adb -r install" command Just use the name of the file you actually download (or rename it to match the instructions - whatever).

3. The other thing they they don't explicitly tell you - and you may not know - is that you need to put the downloaded hacked maps v3.3.1 file in the android SDK's \tools folder. This is the same folder the "adb" command lives in. If you're going to push the file (any file!) to the phone as in the instructions, you need to have it in the same folder as the adb command.

That all took me about 2 mins to work out in all....but understand these issues will not be obvious to everyone, especially people new to this sort of thing who are still building confidence. ]

Original post follows:  

I almost hesitate to say it in case Google hears and turns it off again, but Google Navigation outside the United States appears to working.

This is just one of the good things I discovered after I installed Wes Garner's latest ROM (Build9r1) on my sandpit HTC Magic and gave the GPS Nav a try. It worked!

Other than that, Wes appears to have also produced a very fine ROM. It supports the HTC G1 / Dream set of phones as well as the HTC Magic / MyTouchg3G phones.  The g1 users also get Aps2sd, a real necessity as the amount of app space on the G1 is the most limited of all the androind-based phones. Magic users have almost 3 times as much app space, so Aps2sd isn't really required. I've never come close to the limit on my phone, but I have used double the 96MB available on the G1.

I haven't tested everything on Wes Garner's ROM yet, but so far, so good. He's based it on Cyanogen's very solid v4.2.8, so unless he really screwed up it would almost be hard to go wrong with a solid base like that.

One of the best things about Wes Garner's new ROM is he gives you the choice of 4 different kernels you can try. Two are essentially flavours of the BFS (Brain Fuck Scheduler) kernel - with and without the 10MB RAM Hack (stealing some graphics RAM for system use). The other two are version of the CFS (Completely Fair Scheduler) kernel with and without the 10MB RAM hack.

This ROM is based on Android v1.6 with chunks of Android 2.0 thrown in, like the new Contacts. It seems to have all the best stuff! Wifi-tethering, voice-dialing, new Facebook and Facebook syncing, YouTube video downloading, enhanced Home screen, dialer and default web browser with multi-touch. The only really cool thing missing is the Flash plugin that's included in the Android 2.0 web browser.

There isn't much that is original here, but Wes has put together a compelling package combining speed and function at what must be very close to the sweet spot.

I'm seeding this ROM on Bittorrent.