Google Maps for Android getting offline access

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thekiwi

295 posts

Ultimate Geek

#103437 7-Jun-2012 08:41

http://www.androidcentral.com/google-maps-android-getting-offline-access

This is brilliant as will now be able ot use Google Maps without paying the data connection and not having to cache small areas at a time.

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269 posts

Ultimate Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#637119 7-Jun-2012 08:56

Great! Look forward to seeing that - hopefully not too far away.

thekiwi

295 posts

Ultimate Geek

#637121 7-Jun-2012 08:58

nutbugs: Great! Look forward to seeing that - hopefully not too far away.

Agree ... just hoping it allows for address searches without a connection. That will sway me from NavFree which is a great little app, but you cant do address searches without an active connection

welliegeek

135 posts

Master Geek

#637131 7-Jun-2012 09:07

You've been able to do this to a degree for a while using the pre-cache feature in the Labs part of the settings.

It caches 10 square miles of data around a point selected by you and I've used it for central Sydney and Melbourne when travelling.

I guess it's moved out of the Labs section now :)

thekiwi

295 posts

Ultimate Geek

#637136 7-Jun-2012 09:17

welliegeek: You've been able to do this to a degree for a while using the pre-cache feature in the Labs part of the settings.

It caches 10 square miles of data around a point selected by you and I've used it for central Sydney and Melbourne when travelling.

I guess it's moved out of the Labs section now :)

Yes, the Beta was "ok", but you were limited to the number of cached areas and 10 square miles when travelling is a surprisingly very small area. From what Ive read is now you will be able to download an entire (or multiple) countries.

welliegeek

135 posts

Master Geek

#637148 7-Jun-2012 09:21

thekiwi:
welliegeek: You've been able to do this to a degree for a while using the pre-cache feature in the Labs part of the settings.

It caches 10 square miles of data around a point selected by you and I've used it for central Sydney and Melbourne when travelling.

I guess it's moved out of the Labs section now :)

Yes, the Beta was "ok", but you were limited to the number of cached areas and 10 square miles when travelling is a surprisingly very small area. From what Ive read is now you will be able to download an entire (or multiple) countries.

Yes, hence the "to a degree" caveat :) I found it handy for the central part of overseas cities when walking - no good once you get onto transport of any sort!

thekiwi

295 posts

Ultimate Geek

#649621 2-Jul-2012 15:45

Well, the update came out a few days ago and its not the "killer app" it could have been. Sure you can download an area of approx 60Mb at a time ... and you can view those areas offline but you cant do any searching for an address without a data conection. Not even as good as carrying around a paper map ...

sidefx

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#649635 2-Jul-2012 16:05

Hmmm, thanks for the heads up. Presumably this is the announcement:

http://google-latlong.blogspot.co.nz/2012/06/go-offline-with-google-maps-for-android.html

So it sounds a bit like they've just increased the size of the area you can cache and made it a bit easier to do...?

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thekiwi

295 posts

Ultimate Geek

#649636 2-Jul-2012 16:06

sidefx: Hmmm, thanks for the heads up. Presumably this is the announcement:

http://google-latlong.blogspot.co.nz/2012/06/go-offline-with-google-maps-for-android.html

So it sounds a bit like they've just increased the size of the area you can cache and made it a bit easier to do...?

Yea you can cache a fairly large area (eg Ive done one for the East Coast, another for Hamilton/Cambridge, Tauranga/Whakatane etc) ... but its next to useless for on the road use.

eracode

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#649641 2-Jul-2012 16:11

thekiwi: Well, the update came out a few days ago and its not the "killer app" it could have been. Sure you can download an area of approx 60Mb at a time ... and you can view those areas offline but you cant do any searching for an address without a data conection. Not even as good as carrying around a paper map ...

Yes - and that means it's not an off-line, turn-by-turn GPS app if I understand it correctly? Still waiting for Tomtom for Android then.

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MurrayM

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#649655 2-Jul-2012 16:59

I thought the update was going to let you cache entire countries? I tried caching Auckland and it said the area was too big, which led me to think that maybe the latest update that came out a few days ago isn't the big update that they were talking about and it's yet to arrive.

thekiwi

295 posts

Ultimate Geek

#649658 2-Jul-2012 17:02

MurrayM: I thought the update was going to let you cache entire countries? I tried caching Auckland and it said the area was too big, which led me to think that maybe the latest update that came out a few days ago isn't the big update that they were talking about and it's yet to arrive.

Most news services seem to be saying this is **the** update to allow offline viewing.
The previous caching was very very small ... and the current selection is massive in comparison. Be nice if it was a "minor" step ... but from what Ive been able ti find so far ... this appears to be the update that was planned.

MurrayM

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#649661 2-Jul-2012 17:04

thekiwi:
MurrayM: I thought the update was going to let you cache entire countries? I tried caching Auckland and it said the area was too big, which led me to think that maybe the latest update that came out a few days ago isn't the big update that they were talking about and it's yet to arrive.

Most news services seem to be saying this is **the** update to allow offline viewing.
The previous caching was very very small ... and the current selection is massive in comparison. Be nice if it was a "minor" step ... but from what Ive been able ti find so far ... this appears to be the update that was planned.

Bummer, the only country you could cache with this is The Vatican City...

P1n3apqlExpr3ss

853 posts

Ultimate Geek

#649664 2-Jul-2012 17:06

MurrayM: I thought the update was going to let you cache entire countries? I tried caching Auckland and it said the area was too big, which led me to think that maybe the latest update that came out a few days ago isn't the big update that they were talking about and it's yet to arrive.

I cached Auckland from Warkworth to Huntly

MurrayM

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#649666 2-Jul-2012 17:08

P1n3apqlExpr3ss:
MurrayM: I thought the update was going to let you cache entire countries? I tried caching Auckland and it said the area was too big, which led me to think that maybe the latest update that came out a few days ago isn't the big update that they were talking about and it's yet to arrive.

I cached Auckland from Warkworth to Huntly

Really? When I tried it I just zoomed out a fair way and tried to cache a big area. Maybe I was trying to get too much, I'll go back and try again.

thekiwi

295 posts

Ultimate Geek

#649672 2-Jul-2012 17:10

MurrayM:
P1n3apqlExpr3ss:
MurrayM: I thought the update was going to let you cache entire countries? I tried caching Auckland and it said the area was too big, which led me to think that maybe the latest update that came out a few days ago isn't the big update that they were talking about and it's yet to arrive.

I cached Auckland from Warkworth to Huntly

Really? When I tried it I just zoomed out a fair way and tried to cache a big area. Maybe I was trying to get too much, I'll go back and try again.

It tells you as soon as you zoom out to far if the cached area is too large (has a red color band around the area from memory). Seems to be around 60-80Mb area.
One handy thing is being able ot view the areas already stored ... so you can very easily select adjoining areas.
Still useless as a tool .. :)

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