Brief: Offline Maps Are "back" In Google Maps

Brief: Offline maps are “back” in Google Maps

BY Stefan Constantinescu

Stefan Constantinescu

...

All Articles by Stefan Constantinescu

Published 11 Jul 2013

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Google released a new version of Google Maps yesterday. I’d tell you what I think of them, but the update hasn’t been pushed to my device yet, and I’m not the type of guy who sideloads random APK files from random sites. Anyway, the new version sparked a lot of controversy because of two things. One, offline support was taken out. Two, Latitude was removed. The latter I couldn’t care less about since hardly anyone used the service, but the former is a big deal.

Say you’re traveling. Roaming is, sadly, still an issue. Wouldn’t it be nice to preload all the data about a city so you could use your device in offline mode? Google Maps never properly implemented that. You could save a map “area”, but not a whole city. With the new Google Maps, they took out the button to make those tiny offline maps out altogether.

Today, it’s back. Enjoy.