Google Maps is the top used navigation worldwide. With a number of accurate maps and many real time features, this app has offered users with excellent direction and navigation.
Google Maps provides very accurate real time data with regards to navigation. The app provides traffic updates and also a very handy re-routing option, which ensures saving a lot of time for users. When connected to the internet, Google Maps provides unparalleled features which are not matched by any other application. Google had acquired Waze, another navigation application and has used features to improve on the current Google Maps. However, the app does require an active internet connection and many a times users find themselves without access to data coverage on their smartphones.
Fortunately, Google has also provided an option for offline map services in Android. Users can download the maps of regions when they have access to internet data and view the map later without access to the internet. This service is although limited to only specific features. However, it allows users to use navigation on Google Maps even without data or GPS connectivity. Google Maps prove to really useful thus, when users need to travel to remote locations and offline maps can also be accessed even with phones in the airplane mode of operation.
Users need to take a note of the limitations of the downloaded and saved maps while using them offline. Expanding a map or looking for real time features and updates when offline will only result in error messages being shown. Offline maps do not display options for multiple routes or any additional information on traffic. Only the location and predefined options will be saved for offline use. GPS and other navigation tools are also not supported in the case of offline maps by Google.
It is really easy to download and save maps of locations. All that a user is required to do is to type in the locations of origin and destination. Once the desired direction and location has been displayed by the map, an information sheet can be accessed. This sheet provides an option to save the maps for future offline use. The user will just have to answer a couple of questions and the map is then downloaded and saved for future use.
Once downloaded and saved, maps can be easily accessed later when offline. On opening up the application, an icon on the lower left corner of the screen will open up a set of options. On scrolling down this menu, there is a category titled “Your Places”. This section contains all saved maps which had been downloaded to the device earlier. This allows for extremely easy navigation without the use of GPS or data connectivity. However, this will prove to be a limited service without access to other popular features provided by Google Maps. There are other navigation applications which allow using GPS when offline, but offline Google Maps still proves to be very accurate and many prefer to use it over other apps.