TrailRunner

TrailRunner can now download map images from the internet. Main-USA, Hawaii and Alaska have a good quality as they are based on topographic maps from the 60´s. Unfortunately the rest of the world is only covered (yet) with low to mid quality Nasa satellite imagery.
The current implementation is a proof of concept so you might want to try it out and tell me if it is of any use to you. It might make sense if you happen to get a GPX file from somewhere or if you imported some data from your GPS Device and want to look at the geographical region the route is in.
But I expect more map-servers popping up in the near future. There are already some nice ones for Germany but they only support local coordinate projections — to much work to implement a support in TrailRunner yet.
If you have any feedback or some pointers where I could find other servers to include, please drop me a line. For the technically interested, the known services directory can be found in the MapServices.plist inside the Application Package.

And this is how it works for mere mortals: Import any GPX into an empty document or take a calibrated one. Under File > Import you'll find a new menu item to download the map data.

Have fun, patience and a fast internet-connection.