Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by n1 on Thursday November 12 2015, @07:08AM   Printer-friendly
from the there's-a-map-for-that dept.

Google has updated its Android Maps application with the ability to store offline mapping and location data:

Google has upgraded its Android Maps app so it can provide directions when not connected to the internet. The software also lets devices find businesses' locations, opening hours and telephone numbers while offline. The firm said tourists visiting places outside their mobile subscription plans and people living in emerging markets, where data can be expensive, would be among those who would benefit most.

But one expert said budget-phone owners would now have to juggle data. "Entry-level Android smartphones sometimes only have four gigabytes of onboard storage, making it a precious resource," commented Ben Wood from CCS Insight. [...] Google said downloading most of Greater London would take up 380 megabytes on a device, while storing the San Francisco Bay area would require about 200MB.

It allows you to define a rectangular area specifying the mapping data you want to have available offline. The article mentions that Nokia Maps, now known as Here Maps, has offered a similar feature for years.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Shimitar on Thursday November 12 2015, @08:57AM

    by Shimitar (4208) on Thursday November 12 2015, @08:57AM (#262076) Homepage

    This is not much news. Don't get me wrong, while it might seem so, it's not.

    For two reasons:
    1. Lots of other products exist with same (even better) feature. "Here" is mentioned in the submission, but "Here" it's, again, one of the latest to enter the market too. Garmin as well a TomTom and plenty of others (Sygic and many more) are just examples. This is "news" only because it's google. Like when, back in time, Microsoft used to make news because they added Movie Maker or embedded ZIP support. Not news, just the latest solution to an old problem others have solved already but are not big enough to make news.

    2. Google Maps already had this feature for ages. Yes they kept masking it to the point of making it unfindable from one version to the other, but still i used it a few times in the last years (yes, YEARS). The only news here is that you can keep offline a bigger portion of data, while before it was quite unclear how much and for how long you could keep it offiline.

    In other words, Google is the new Microsoft all round, 20 years later, even in the news.

    --
    Coding is an art. No, java is not coding. Yes, i am biased, i know, sorry if this bothers you.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Interesting=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 1) by Shimitar on Thursday November 12 2015, @08:59AM

    by Shimitar (4208) on Thursday November 12 2015, @08:59AM (#262077) Homepage

    I missed the "offline directions" part of the news... which might seem a little bit more "news".

    My previous points still stand, tough, specially because it's not news, but just "changelog".

    --
    Coding is an art. No, java is not coding. Yes, i am biased, i know, sorry if this bothers you.
    • (Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Thursday November 12 2015, @09:59AM

      by wonkey_monkey (279) on Thursday November 12 2015, @09:59AM (#262086) Homepage

      I missed the "offline directions" part of the news... which might seem a little bit more "news".

      They're not the first to have that feature, either.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk
    • (Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Thursday November 12 2015, @02:25PM

      by q.kontinuum (532) on Thursday November 12 2015, @02:25PM (#262146) Journal

      Full disclosure: I work for HERE.

      I missed the "offline directions" part of the news... which might seem a little bit more "news"

      Which is funny, because it is one of the core features of HERE maps which you mentioned :-) BTW: HERE was one of the latest apps entering the Android market, but the company under its previous name is one of the first and best-known to offer map data. It was previously known as Navteq, 2008 bought by Nokia (Nokia Maps/Ovi Maps was available for Symbian phones for some time), and made it to Windows Phone 2011 as one of the few good reasons to want to have a Windows Phone that time. Rebranded to HERE, in 2013, iirc.

      My previous points still stand, tough, specially because it's not news, but just "changelog".

      Ok, then you are right, of course.

      --
      Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by TheRaven on Thursday November 12 2015, @02:49PM

      by TheRaven (270) on Thursday November 12 2015, @02:49PM (#262155) Journal
      OSMAnd has had offline navigation and offline vector maps for years. The vector part is important, as detailed maps for the entire UK are smaller than Google Maps for Greater London. I have a cheap Android phone (Moto G) and have used OSMAnd on it and my previous cheap Android phone (HTC Desire), without hitting any space constraints. I used to have a cheap 8GB SD card in my HTC, which could happily store several countries worth of maps. I don't need to think about adding new maps unless I'm travelling - when I go to a new country then adding the maps to the phone is one of the things that I remember to do, but for travel within a country it's always there. I've not even bothered trying Google Maps for a year and I'm not sure why "Google adds feature that is less good than competitors' version" counts as news.
      --
      sudo mod me up
      • (Score: 2) by kadal on Thursday November 12 2015, @05:50PM

        by kadal (4731) on Thursday November 12 2015, @05:50PM (#262250)

        Have you had good luck with the navigation? Google Maps' big advantage is the ease of finding what you're looking for.

        • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Thursday November 12 2015, @06:27PM

          by TheRaven (270) on Thursday November 12 2015, @06:27PM (#262273) Journal
          Yes, I used the OSMAnd navigation fairly extensively when I moved here. I also tried Google Maps, but it was mostly missing footpaths and cycle paths, and in a couple of places didn't know about one-way streets. I've used OSMAnd in Belgium, France, and four states in the USA in the last year or so without issues, as well as here in the UK. The navigation works well for car, bike, and foot. It's not always the ideal route, but it always gets me to the destination in reasonable time. The offline maps also have POI and address databases, so I can usually enter the address of my destination and find the place that I'm looking for, or scroll to vaguely near my destination and search for (for example) hotels or coffee shops within a small distance and then refine by name, all without Internet access. It probably makes my mobile provider a bit unhappy, as I'd definitely have paid for data roaming on a few trips if it hadn't been working well.
          --
          sudo mod me up
  • (Score: 1) by driverless on Friday November 13 2015, @01:58AM

    by driverless (4770) on Friday November 13 2015, @01:58AM (#262455)

    2. Google Maps already had this feature for ages. Yes they kept masking it to the point of making it unfindable from one version to the other, but still i used it a few times in the last years (yes, YEARS).

    That was my reaction to the post as well, haven't they had this for ages? Admittedly it sucks so badly it's basically unusable (I spent a day wandering around Paris without a map thanks to Google's "offline" mode, luckily I found a paper map in a tourist place). Then I discovered Nokia's "Here" maps, and have never looked back. It's actually fully functional in offline mode, I've replaced Google maps with it as my default mapping app.

    If anyone has other suggestions I'd be happy to look at them, I just found Here so much better than Google's app that I didn't look much further.