# Balise - Topo Maps & GPX — IGN, swisstopo & USGS terrain > IGN, swisstopo & USGS terrain (iPhone/iPad app by Magenta Creations.) - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/balise-topo-maps-and-gpx/id6800360907 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`) - Developer: [Magenta Creations](https://appshunter.io/developer/492433904) - Category: Navigation - Price: Free with in-app purchases - Age rating: 4+ - Requires: iOS 26.0 · 8 MB - Languages: American English, French (France) - Released: 2026-08-27 - Data updated: 2026-09-08 - User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/balise-topo-maps-and-gpx/id6800360907/reviews.md ## What is Balise? The official national surveys on your iPhone: USGS, the IGN map of France, swisstopo and IGN España, with your own routes drawn over them. Balise is one app for Mac and iPhone. Plan on the large screen, and with Pro your library is already on the phone at the trailhead, synced through your own iCloud. One Pro purchase covers both platforms. In English and French. UNITED STATES: FIVE USGS LAYERS US Topo, Imagery Topo, NAIP, 3DEP shaded relief and NHD hydrography, all public domain. FRANCE: TEN IGN ENTRIES • Plan IGN — the reference map, down to 1:5,000 • Aerial photography — BD ORTHO®, 20 cm • Aerial photography through time — seven editions on one slider: a path clear in 1965 and under canopy by 2023 is a path no longer there • Slope shading — above 30°, from RGE ALTI® • Forest cover — BD Forêt® v2, dominant species • Cadastral parcels — PCI Express • Place names — BD TOPO® toponyms, with no basemap under them • Forest rescue points — the posts French firefighters ask for • Historic sheets — état-major (1820-1866) and SCAN 50 (1950) SWITZERLAND AND SPAIN Five swisstopo layers: the Landeskarte to 1:10,000, a grey edition for reading overlays against, SWISSIMAGE at 10 cm, swissALTI3D relief and the surveyed hiking network. Two from IGN España: the Mapa Topográfico Nacional and PNOA orthophotography. Which country you are in is read from the map against real borders. A country's maps are offered as soon as its ground is on screen, before you have panned fully into it. A STACK YOU DRIVE Layers stack over Apple's basemap, satellite or hybrid, or over a blank floor that makes slope shading readable alone. Every layer has its own opacity. Hide one with the eye and it keeps its slot rather than making you rebuild the stack. Reorder from a layer's own menu. WHERE YOU ARE The locate button steps through off, follow, and follow with heading, so the map turns to face the way you are walking. Pan the map and following stops, the way Maps does it. Your position is drawn and nothing more, never recorded or sent. YOUR TRACKS • Open GPX from Files, a share sheet or a mail attachment, several at once • An elevation profile you scrub with a finger, the point marked on the map as you move • Distance, ascent, descent, elevation range, duration, in metric or imperial • Export GPX 1.1 to Files, crediting every visible source • The eight-colour track palette, honoured on import and export BALISE PRO, A ONE-TIME UNLOCK • Draw a route with your finger, each leg snapped to the real path network, with a toggle for a straight segment • A walking time from Tobler's hiking function, integrated over the climb rather than a flat average speed • Historic monuments: 44,310 protected buildings, drawn with no network • Petites Cités de Caractère: 207 labelled small towns • Huts, cabins and water points from refuges.info, including those marked closed Snapping and the overlays are French; elsewhere Pro unlocks drawing without snapping. Not a subscription: buy it on either platform and it covers the other. OPEN DATA, PROPERLY CREDITED France from IGN's Géoplateforme under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0, Switzerland from swisstopo under FSDI terms, Spain from IGN España under CC BY 4.0, the US public domain from USGS. No key, no intermediary, no mapping-company account. PRIVACY No account, no sign-up, no telemetry. Balise talks to the mapping agencies whose layers are on screen, Apple for the basemap and for search outside France, and refuges.info if you turn it on. Nothing else. Your library stays on your devices and, with sync on, in your private iCloud database. WHAT BALISE DOES NOT DO No turn-by-turn navigation and no voice guidance. No offline regions: ground you have not already looked at needs a connection. No route sharing. Requires iOS 26. Balise for Mac is a free download from this same listing, and Pro unlocks on both. Balise is a planning tool, not safety equipment. In the mountains, carry a paper map and check conditions before you set out. ## Pricing and in-app purchases Base price: Free. **One-time purchases** | Purchase | Price | Type | | --- | --- | --- | | Balise Pro | $8.90 | one-time | ## Version history (last 2 releases) ### 1.1.0 — 2026-09-04 KML and KMZ files now open in Balise, and 179 GR routes come built in. • KML and KMZ join GPX everywhere a file arrives: the Files picker, a share sheet, a mail attachment, and "Open in Balise" from another app. The French route sites publish for Google Earth, so the file you are handed second is usually a .kml. • A searchable directory of published route guides, 179 GR routes, with publisher sections that collapse. • Waypoints no longer have to belong to a track. Track endpoints are drawn as their own kind, and each kind can be shown or hidden on its own. • A track can be hidden without deleting it. • Panning is smoother and tiles load faster. Balise also has a way to reach us, which the iPhone did not have. In the library, the "…" menu opens Aide, with Send Feedback and Balise Support. The form opens on balise.mgcrea.io in your own language. No account and no GitHub, and nothing is sent from the app: it hands your browser a web address and stops. • Dismissing the file picker without exporting no longer reports "Export failed." • Four alert titles stayed in French whatever the device language. They are now translated. • Balise may ask you to rate it once you have exported a track to GPX, at most once per version, and never in a session where the upgrade sheet appeared. Library sync is now part of Balise Pro. It ran for everyone before this release; without Pro your library stays on this iPhone. Nothing is deleted, and buying Pro picks it up where it left off. Still no account, no sign-up and no telemetry. ### 1.0.0 — 2026-09-02 No release notes. ## More apps by Magenta Creations - [RXd - Workouts Tracker](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/rxd-workouts-tracker/id6745904823) - [DevPulse - Your Release Radar](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/devpulse-your-release-radar/id6753819990) All apps by Magenta Creations: https://appshunter.io/developer/492433904 --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-08.*