Image: mollybeee/Flickr
At Google I/O back in May, Google announced a plan to make Google Maps have offline availability—and that feature is beginning to roll out, six months later.Coming now to Android users and soon to iOS, Google Maps will now enable you to search for a city or country and download whole portions for offline access later. It won't just be a screenshot, either: as Google states in their blog post announcing the new feature, "you can get turn-by-turn driving directions, search for specific destinations, and find useful information about places."
There was an old trick you could do (and still can, in fact) to save zoomable portions of Google Maps, by typing "ok maps" into the search bar and following the prompts. But this update will allow for much bigger areas to be saved in greater detail, helping people navigate in countries with a poorer digital infrastructure. And the everyday, connected user with their home city saved should notice that Maps loads faster now, as the offline data fills in tiny gaps in their wireless connectivity.The update doesn't include transit and walking directions just yet, but Google project manager Amanda Bishop told The Verge that those will follow in a few months' time. That will be convenient for subway riders, too.No word on how much space these map downloads will take up on your phone, but Google has said they'll only download them when you're connected to Wi-Fi, to prevent them from eating up all of your data.