Pre cached Google maps

Pliablemoose

Lifer
Oct 11, 1999
25,195
0
56
Is slick as hell,

Used my wifi tablet with GPS (HTC Flyer), drove across town using google nav & pre cached area & no data connection.
 

ponyo

Lifer
Feb 14, 2002
19,688
2,811
126
Google maps and free wifi tethering are two of the main reasons I use Android instead of other mobile OS.
 

zerocool84

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
36,041
472
126
you can use downloaded map data in google maps?

He's talking about Google Maps caching his route on navigation. Don't need a data connection after you initially get the data for the navigation. It'll also cache map areas that you've looked at recently also.
 

gorcorps

aka Brandon
Jul 18, 2004
30,741
456
126
He's talking about Google Maps caching his route on navigation. Don't need a data connection after you initially get the data for the navigation. It'll also cache map areas that you've looked at recently also.

:hmm: That may be the case, however in my poking around I found an extra "labs" option that lets you pre-cache any part of the map regardless of if you've been there or not. In the maps app if you open settings and go to "labs" you can enable "pre-cache map data". This lets you cache a large chunk of the map by long tapping on the centerpoint and clicking "pre-cache map area"
 

vshah

Lifer
Sep 20, 2003
19,003
24
81
yup, i'm going to a very rural part of india for my wedding, so i've precached the entire area around there. google maps has detailed maps, but there is only spotty data coverage there.
 

zerocool84

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
36,041
472
126
:hmm: That may be the case, however in my poking around I found an extra "labs" option that lets you pre-cache any part of the map regardless of if you've been there or not. In the maps app if you open settings and go to "labs" you can enable "pre-cache map data". This lets you cache a large chunk of the map by long tapping on the centerpoint and clicking "pre-cache map area"

Ahh cool, thanks for that little scoop. Checked it out right now and will definitely come in handy.
 

Pliablemoose

Lifer
Oct 11, 1999
25,195
0
56
Yep, you can pre cache 10 miles or so of any area, in my case, that's downtown LA.

TWC has also got a good chunk of downtown covered with WiFi.
 

vshah

Lifer
Sep 20, 2003
19,003
24
81
Yep, you can pre cache 10 miles or so of any area, in my case, that's downtown LA.

TWC has also got a good chunk of downtown covered with WiFi.

There seems to be a limit of 10 areas though,which is kinda annoying
 

manko

Golden Member
May 27, 2001
1,846
1
0
I used these maps recently too. I had to update my Maps app though, the stock version didn't have the labs pre-cache option.
 

thedosbox

Senior member
Oct 16, 2009
961
0
0
There are plenty of reasons to knock Symbian, but this was one of the things that kept me on a E71 for the longest time. It was nice being able to download maps for an entire country and avoid data roaming charges.
 

podspi

Golden Member
Jan 11, 2011
1,982
102
106
I'm not sure why more GPS apps don't make a big deal about this... I'd be willing to pay money for a good GPS app that could download maps. Heck, google could monetize navigation right there.
 

the DRIZZLE

Platinum Member
Sep 6, 2007
2,956
1
81
I'm not sure why more GPS apps don't make a big deal about this... I'd be willing to pay money for a good GPS app that could download maps. Heck, google could monetize navigation right there.

There are a few third party apps that have offline maps.
 
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Red Storm

Lifer
Oct 2, 2005
14,233
234
106
I have 4 areas pre-cached: My place, work, school, and my parents' place. A nice feature.
 

shortylickens

No Lifer
Jul 15, 2003
80,287
17,081
136
I need true offline browsing, so I can use my out of service Droid as a navigator. A 16gb card is more than enough to have maps on all the US, dunno about POI's.
Have only seen that from paid apps so far. Gmaps keeps promising it but so far I aint found it yet.
 

WelshBloke

Lifer
Jan 12, 2005
33,116
11,292
136
I need true offline browsing, so I can use my out of service Droid as a navigator. A 16gb card is more than enough to have maps on all the US, dunno about POI's.
Have only seen that from paid apps so far. Gmaps keeps promising it but so far I aint found it yet.

The paid versions really aren't that expensive, just get one of those.