The official Google Maps blog:
Roughly 60 percent of the world is without Internet today, and even where online access is available, it can still be spotty. That means that quick and easy access to information is still not possible for a majority of the population. This is a huge problem, especially as people attempt to navigate and explore the world around them, so Google Maps is taking steps to help people across the globe find directions and get where they’re going, even when they don’t have an Internet connection.
Now you can download an area of the world to your phone, and the next time you find there’s no connectivity—whether it’s a country road or an underground parking garage—Google Maps will continue to work seamlessly. Whereas before you could simply view an area of the map offline, now you can get turn-by-turn driving directions, search for specific destinations, and find useful information about places, like hours of operation, contact information or ratings.
This is a huge benefit, especially for folks with limited data plans. By far, the biggest suck on my data plan is map usage when I am on the road. Love this!
Anyone know how much space this will take up?
Well, “now” as in “coming soon to ios”. Rolling out for Android today
It’s nice that this is being promoted to an official feature, but it’s been available for years as an easter egg. Just load the area you want to save offline into view, and search for “ok maps”.
I don’t get it, isn’t this already possible? It’s right here on Google Maps on my iPhone.
Wasn’t the entire point of shifting from image data to vector data in Apple Maps (and then Google Maps) to eliminate the heavy data usage of mapping applications? This clearly isn’t meant to benefit people wanting to conserve data usage, but rather for people that are planning to go somewhere without a data connection at all.
It seems to me that it would likely take a fairly small amount of data, unless you are planning to download an entire state’s or country’s worth of mapping data.
Also, I know Apple Maps already downloads a large swath of data whenever you start directions somewhere to ensure that if you get off the route it can reroute you without a network connection. Of course, that’s only helpful if you don’t cancel the directions. This will definitely be helpful for those that are traveling somewhere unfamiliar with no guarantee of cell coverage.