No more USGS quad maps in Explore 4.0?

USGS Quads seem to be part of the Outdoor Maps+ subscription, according to Outdoor Maps Plus Premium Mapping Types.

Wow, too bad.  They were free before in Garmin Explore, and are free to the public generally and free to download in other free iOS apps.

Same here - I went to use them yesterday and poof - all gone.  I used them all the time hiking - what's up?

It appears so.  This is borderline criminial. I had a similar experience with Texas Instruments a few months ago. They also "updated" their software with no warning that doing so would put you into a subscription hellscape, thereby removing functionality that was previously free.  Garmin's move was even more egregious because my iOS and Android devices updated automatically. Then, low and behold, map options are practically nill now UNLESS you pay us $50 a year. Garmin has been blind to the writing on the wall. People genereally hate subscription services, in fact they are cancelling subcriptions at an increasing rate. Yet Garmin decided that a naked money grab was appropriate to pull on people without their consent.  They must have some really smart and not-at-all-oblivious people working in Olathe.  I'm sure if and when they ever answer my letter of disapproval, they will try to phrase this greed in terms of how it will benefit me with constant updates or some such idiocy. 

Nothing screams capitalism like charging people for publicly available and publicly funded work, in this case USGS maps!

If we had any other viable options in the US, I would kick Garmin to the curb in a heartbeat!  As flawed as they were, I'm missing Magellan.  At least we had one option when they were still around.  Garmin has a monopoly now.

 I called customer support and confirmed that you need to pay the $49.99 for a years subscription to get them now.  

I also sent my 'experience' discovering the 'loss' to them:

>>

You recently forced an upgrade to vers 4.0. I happened to have prepped for a trip on the North County Trail in WI on 10/11 and departed for that trip on 10/25. On 10/11, I downloaded all the USGS topo maps for the Cheq/Nic Nat'l Forest. I got to my trailhead on 10/27, fired up Explore with my mini2 and IOS phone and.... I was welcomed to 4.0 and no Topo Maps... just high level Topo Interactive with no trail detail. This could have been a hazardous situation but I got through it. The request? Please Please Please don't force upgrades that take away function (the upgrade erased the maps which are now subscription-confirmed this with cust supp rep). Put in a dialogue to warn and confirm upgrade, or put in a 30 day grace period with forced notifications... anything is better than the huge surprise that I received. Please take this comment as positive feedback and PLEASE take it to heart. People rely on your products for their safety and surprise take-aways like this are simply dangerous.

>>

I got a nice polite response and apology but nothing more... and we all wonder why its so easy to be cynical about corporate motivations?? 

FWIW - the 7.5min quad maps are still available in Garmin Earthmate.  There's no Inreach mini2 support but the maps are there.

It’s worse than you describe. It is actually deliberately misleading, because no-where in the update text on iOS App Store did it say anything about maps that had been previously free now being behind a paywall. Just. We are updating our mapping engine.

So even if you had not automatically updated, but had checked the update text descriptions you would still not have known and may have chosen to accept the update then found out.

if you have a consumer rights body in the US then I think you’d be well justified in making a complaint

There's a free app called US Topo Maps that still provides those. If you open it where you have service it will cache the map for free. You can download them for a yearly subscription of $14.00. They used to have a lifetime fee of $35.00 but I don't see that anymore

I just noticed that "USGS quadrants" now appear as another option in the Map Type options.  Did you (i.e., Garmin) just add these back today?  If so, thanks!  However, I'm not seeing difference, other than color and shading, when I toggle between "Topo" and "USGS" under Map Type. Could that be because I haven't actually downloaded the applicable quad although it appears as a Map Type option?

(EDIT: Yes, as per my next comment, I hadn't actually downloaded the quads for off line use.  Now I have them!)