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Peter Holden
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Back at Google I/O this year, the ability to search for a city or specific area on Google Maps and download it for offline use was demonstrated, and it now appears to be rolling out to the masses.
Basically, while you still have access to the internet, you can search for a city or even country and tap the ‘Download’ option on the resulting card, or you can navigate to the ‘Offline Areas’ section of Google Maps and press the ‘+’ button to begin downloading the map of your choice. Once the chosen area is downloaded, Google Maps will switch automatically between online and offline modes as need be, so when you lose internet access it will switch seamlessly into offline mode, and vice versa. As you can see from the GIF above, it really is a simple process.While in offline mode, access to live traffic conditions will naturally be unachievable. Google says that maps will only be downloaded to the device when on a Wi-Fi connection. The updated Google Maps app is in the process of rolling out, so it may be a couple of hours before it reaches your device.
Update: The Maps 9.17.0 update is live and can now be downloaded to your device from here.
New features:
- Offline navigation and search
- Much larger allowed offline areas (and up to 2.5GB in size now)
- Direct link to Offline Areas and Your Contributions in the menu
- Measure distance
- Download shortcut available in all POIs now
Source: Google, APK Mirror
Come comment on this article: Offline maps and navigation function is officially rolling out to Google Maps [Updated]
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