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.
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Ride-hailing company Uber has changed its application programming interface (API) to allow iOS and Android developers to integrate a "Ride Request Button" into their apps:
Uber's latest growth strategy is to colonize the mobile app landscape with its new Ride Request Button. Launching today, iOS and Android app developers can more easily plug in an SDK with a few lines of code to add a Ride Request Button to their apps that deep-links into Uber's app. In exchange for the literal traffic, Uber will pay US developers $5 for each first-time rider they refer. Previously, developers had to hassle with building custom deep-linked integrations.
TechCrunch initially reported that Uber's policy banned app developers from adding similar hooks to competing services such as Lyft. The article has been updated to state the following:
What developers can't do is put the Uber button next to links or buttons for other car services, according to Uber's API terms, which say:
"You may not use the Uber API, Uber API Materials, or Uber Data in any manner that is competitive to Uber or the Uber Services, including, without limitation, in connection with any application, website or other product or service that also includes, features, endorses, or otherwise supports in any way a third party that provides services competitive to Uber's products and services, in our sole discretion."
The company confirmed to me that this policy stands for the Ride Request Button. It claims that this is because it wants to offer a consistent Uber experience in other apps, but it's a thinly veiled attack on competitors. Some services like Slack offer ways to instantly book a Lyft, and brands like Starbucks have built loyalty programs with the pink mustache cars. Uber's policy incentivizes it racing to sign up partners for its API as a way to block Lyft from getting integrated too if it launches an official API.
The latest version of Google Maps on iOS and Android adds an advertisment showing an Uber(X) fare estimate below public transportation options (a combination of bus and rail). Previously this had been introduced in 2014 for users in select cities.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Shimitar on Thursday November 12 2015, @08:57AM
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.
(Score: 1) by Shimitar on Thursday November 12 2015, @08:59AM
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
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
Full disclosure: I work for HERE.
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.
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
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by kadal on Thursday November 12 2015, @05:50PM
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
sudo mod me up
(Score: 1) by driverless on Friday November 13 2015, @01:58AM
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.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 12 2015, @09:23AM
https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=net.osmand.plus [f-droid.org]
OsmAnd and its maps are open source, they have a smaller space footprint, and the on-device navigation is really good.
I've been using it for five years and it has served me well through my travels in the US, Puerto Rico, and India.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Shimitar on Thursday November 12 2015, @10:03AM
While it might seem strange, there is people who don't like "free" and "community". It always boggles me, but i know a couple. They just say that if it's free either i does not work or it has hidden agendas. For these people, anything from Microsoft or Google is much better than something like OSM.
I don't get them, but they exist.
Coding is an art. No, java is not coding. Yes, i am biased, i know, sorry if this bothers you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 12 2015, @03:53PM
That is when you empasize that if is Free as in Freedom, not price.
They are probably trusting the price system to tell them how much something is worth.
Of course, Google maps are "free" as in beer, so I dunno.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 13 2015, @02:40AM
They would be correct in some instances. For example, corporate interests "outing" Firefox's former CEO, who championed online freedom, as a homophobe, and having him replaced with someone who integrated DRM into the browser and forced closed-source software into the browser, such as the Pocket social network [the-digital-reader.com]. Then there's the RedHat developer who single-handedly took over all of the init process on modern Linux systems so that RedHat could leverage their "support" model.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 12 2015, @11:28AM
For what it's worth, I've been using it as well throughout Europe with very few glitches, most of these usually caused by me not updating the map before my trip.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday November 12 2015, @11:04AM
How hard does it have to be to save the map data in a local cache?
So I want to see how to get to a certain very special oasis way the Hell out in the middle of death valley. I look it up in Google Maps oh yeah that's where it is. Then I'm in Death Valley and I'm lost. O well I'm shit outta luck because you can sell more ad clicks if we force the user to use the Internet.
I often tell people that I get a lot more work done if I can't connect to the Internet; they don't know that's even possible. "Well it's real simple I just get all the stuff I'm going to need while I am connected. Modern devices force you to use the Internet so they can sell more advertising."
Then there is the US Geological Survey, and dead trees. Imagine that!
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Thursday November 12 2015, @01:24PM
One nice thing about this is that it lets you use phones that don't have cell service as navigation devices anyway. For example I picked up this phone [amazon.com] recently for $20US. You can skip activating it with the carrier and you still have a decent GPS for very cheap. It even has a microSD slot that supports cards up to 32GB.
One question not addressed by the article is whether or not you can save the offline map data onto a microSD card instead of the main memory on the phone.
(Score: 2) by bart9h on Thursday November 12 2015, @01:33PM
whether or not you can save the offline map data onto a microSD card instead of the main memory on the phone
With OpenStreetMap you can.