Great News for Google Map Users

At long last Google Maps has now added offline navigation and search, currently only available for Android OS, this will allow you to save a location and even navigate without the need for a data or even Wi-Fi connection.

So how does it work? Well before you can make use of this feature you should check you have the latest version of Google Maps installed on your Android device.

Once you have done this you will need to download area maps to use offline. You can do this by searching for the city or area you want to download for offline use. Then in the upper right, touch the menu.

To save the map, select the Save offline map and then follow the onscreen directions.

Alternatively you can go to “Your Places” and you will see an “Offline areas” prompt, select this and you will go back to the area map then click the download option as seen in the screen shot below.

You can see a full list of directions for downloading and viewing offline area maps at the Google support webpage.

There is one drawback however. All those maps are going to take up precious storage space on your phone. So if you wanted to download a map of the San Francisco Bay Area for example you wouldn’t require around 200MB of space. Obviously this can soon add up so anyone with an entry level device with say just 8 or 16GB may well struggle. A solution could be to put the Google Maps app onto you micro SD storage card if your phone has this capability.

With this upgrade you will be no long have to save several screen shots of maps before you out somewhere with limited data reception or a without a stable Wi-Fi connection, you can also search for lactation on the map and it can switch seamlessly between theses offline and the online area map.

While this upgrade will allow you to search for locations as well as restaurants and business you won’t be able to see online reviews of those locations and the satellite view as well as driving directions isn’t enabled, well not as of yet anyway. This is still a great and very welcomed upgrade that is sure to be appreciated by the many Google Map users out there, well the ones running Android at least… For those of you with an iOS device you will have to wait a little longer for this update and even then, unless you have one of the 32GB or 64GB storage option you may want to give it a miss.

Alternatively you could join the rest of us on Android and pick up a great deal from Chinavasion huge range of Android Phones.