For the longest time, Google Maps has been capable of saving maps for offline use, but has always lacked one crucial piece of the puzzle – offline navigation support. This is particularly important for the frequent traveller who doesn’t necessarily have readily available access to data, but Google has finally come through for us all. Starting today, Google Maps now has offline navigation support and the update will start rolling out to all Android apps from today – iOS is “coming soon”.
To use the new functionality, you’ll need to download the map before you start your navigation – once downloaded, you’ll be able to use the map almost as if Google Maps was still connected to the Internet. The questions that come to my mind are how much storage this functionality requires and whether the re-routing part of the navigation is still going to work as well once the data connection is cut. All the same, it’s great to have this functionality and there are a lot of people that are going to be happy about this.
What do you think about Google Maps now having offline navigation support? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: Google Blog via Droid-life
