google maps downloads maps on the fly as you navigate...
you can pick an area to download to SD card in advance... so you can download it over wifi and not 3g... saving your data credit and speeding it up when you do need it... speeding it up a lot....
but does anyone know how to download all of the uk ?
you can select an area to download, but there's a size limit... not sure if it's an area limit or a file size limit... max file size looks to be about 63meg for me... (it's hard to select an exact size)
it's handy to have as a backup to a satnav... especially if like me you go off all over the county without any preparation.... but it's pretty crap if I'm somewhere with crappy reception and have to sit and wait for it to download maps over 3g... and pay £1 a meg for it too
(no free data for me.... I don't really use it)
Was reading an article the other day about it and in Jelly Bean (4.1) the download max is 80mb (US article) so they were complaining that with such a small limit its pretty useless in the states, UK not sure how much can cover with that but still will be pretty limited.
At the moment it seems its impossible to download the whole country. What I don't understand is why you have to select a square are to download when surely it would be better to be given the option to "download my navigation route and an extra 5-10miles each side of route"
I doubt they will tailor to your situation with no free data as that defiantly doesn't seem to be the norm with smartphone owners these days ;)
What about something like NavFree, a free SatNav? I assume it's on Android too?
there are lots of satnavs available on android which all the maps are stored locally on the device. Some free and some free if you know where to look.
Quote from: DEViANCE on July 03, 2012, 21:44:11 PM
there are lots of satnavs available on android which all the maps are stored locally on the device. Some free and some free if you know where to look.
I've got FoeverMapLite on my android, not really needed to use it yet but its handy just to have on just in case. Doesn't have great ratings on the market but mostly seems to be people who don't have wifi connections or think its slow downloading...
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.skobbler.forevermaplite&hl=en
I use navfree on the iphone (I guess its on android too) and can't fault it really. I was actually quite surprised by what it does considering it being free.
Quote*Only map tiles are downloaded. You can't search for points of interest or get navigation directions offline.
*Maps are automatically deleted after 30 days. There's no warning and no way to change this behavior. If you depend on your map, you might find it has disappeared when you need it most.
just read that about google maps....
going to download a different program instead
shame... i quite liked it :(
It seems they sort of rushed the feature in to have something with the apple offline maps that's coming next ios update... hopefully it will get better with a couple updates.
downloaded... freenav.. or summit like that
30sec download, fired it up, picked my map, 411meg downland.. 10 min later all installed and job done
you'd have thought it would have been easier for google to let you download entire maps that selecting a small area and download that ?
and wtf is the point in downloading maps, if you can't use those maps to navigate?
Gonna try freenav as well, looks better than the one I had already
Quote from: knighty on July 04, 2012, 14:39:30 PM
you'd have thought it would have been easier for google to let you download entire maps that selecting a small area and download that ?
All to do with the licensing. Google will get its mapping data from 3rd parties and they would probably have to pay a lot of money to be allowed to allow their users to download/make copies of said maps. Its annoying, but there's plenty of solutions out there that use openstreetmap data now :)
don't google have there own maps ?
they have all that satellite/aerial photography, street view of every street in every major country and now 3D views of major cities... a street map can't but hard !
The satellite imagery is provided from several other sources and streamed through google earth/maps (that's what the copyright info at the bottom of the pages is EG, infoterra etc). Pretty sure the map data originally will have been the same, though it's now probably been modified heavily, though the original data copyright rules probably apply so any derivatives (google maps) probably shouldn't be reproduced without the original sources permission.
I don't know whether streetview would have been Google, a company contracted by google, or a company that google bought the rights for the data, if that makes sense. Geospatial data is pretty lucrative. It wasn't until last year that the ordnance survey got with the times and released some data for free public use via opendata. When you actually read the ToS for Google earth and its API it's pretty strict in what you can and can't do, pretty sure most businesses use it illegally if you take the ToS literally.
Another vote for NavFree here, the on-foot directions are pretty good to, and if you pop overseas you can just download the maps for where you're going. I don't use my stand alone SatNav anymore because my phone is just better in every way.