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How to download offline maps on Apple Maps
Google Maps had it first, but here's how to save destinations for offline navigation on Apple Maps
The iOS 17 update for iPhone 15 and other models now lets you save multiple locations offline. It brought Apple Maps up to par with Google Maps. Offline maps are common on many navigation apps and helpful in numerous scenarios. For one, you'll avoid roaming charges. Mobile carriers often charge extra fees when you use your phone's data plan in a different country. Your offline maps give you directions without an internet connection since you downloaded them. They can also help you find your way when you lose cellular service. Here's how to use them to save your favorite locations.
Waze is a navigation app that makes moving from location to destination easy. Unlike Google and Apple Maps, which rely heavily on satellite data, the app is community-driven. Users like you report speed traps and other live incidents, as well as become map editors to add new roads, points of interest, and missing information. Accessing these real-time contributions requires an internet connection, whether you're using the app on your mobile phone or car display. You can't download maps and use them offline. However, there's a workaround, and we show you how it works.
Google Maps: How to download and use maps offline
Make sure you don't get lost when your internet connection does
Getting lost in a strange place, surrounded by unfamiliar landmarks and people — or worse, being surrounded by nothing and nobody — can be scary. It's even worse if you're in a foreign country where you don't speak the language and can't ask for directions. Luckily, the Google Maps app for Android and iOS is a perfect travel companion that rarely gets lost.
Downloading offline maps allows you to use essential features of Google Maps while disconnected from the web. It's a great idea if you're traveling in a remote area with a patchy signal or traveling to a foreign country where you might not have a data plan.
For many people around the world, this is the holiday season. We're packing things up and hitting the road to visit family and friends. Most of us will put at least some part of our trip into Google's hands as we launch Maps and wait for it to tell us which turn to take next. A new version hit the beta channel yesterday to prepare for some of these road trips. There are a few new features and a boatload of items for a teardown.
A new version of Google Maps has been rolling out over the weekend, but there's not much to see in terms of big changes. There are a couple of minor additions to be found, including a more obvious link to the offline settings screen and a switch in commute settings to allow for better results with the use of location history. A teardown also reveals a possible change to the rating system, new services for Reserve with Google, and an option to set your preferred mass transit station.
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Back at Google I/O earlier this year, Google teased offline maps and turn-by-turn navigation in Google Maps, a feature that many of us have wanted for a long, long time. Today, that feature comes to fruition.
Let's face it, Google Maps' current offline functionality sucks. Even saving an area for offline viewing is a relatively hidden option that you either stumble upon by mistake once or that you have to actively remember how to get to when you need it. But Google seems intent on making offline maps better.
For those who may not know, Google Maps has an offline feature. It's not all that useful (it doesn't allow saved locations to be searched nor does it provide directions/navigation - it's essentially a paper map on a small screen), but it's still a thing that may be useful to someone at some point. Assuming you think ahead and actually save a map of the location in which you may need for it to be offline, of course.
Maps 7.1 is slowly rolling out into the world. Google is making this teardown particularly difficult, because they haven't even gotten around to releasing a change log yet - it's up to me to come up with something. First though, we need to cover the good stuff that most definitely won't be in the change log, because this has me excited:
There are a lot of cool things about the new Google Maps update, but a few features from the old app didn't make the jump. Google made a big deal about offline maps when it was added a few years ago. So it's a little surprising to see this feature missing in Maps v7... or is it? Mountain View has included a bit of an Easter Egg here.
I imagine there was a meeting at TomTom some months ago where it was decided, for whatever reason, that there was a need for them to bring their own maps and navigation apps to Android. Now, after who knows how long, those apps have come to fruition. Only they're quite expensive ($38-$60), and not compatible with, well, any modern device. Not the HTC One X, Galaxy Note, Galaxy S III, or Galaxy Nexus. And no tablets. Or many other relevant devices.