News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Google Maps for Android lose offline Maps - seriously? by bane on Wednesday July 10, 2013 @07:32AM (#6018728)
I really really tried to on a recent trip overseas. It totally didn't do what I needed (I don't remember the exact details but I think it didn't allow for offline searching or something).

As a backup I had two other free nav apps on my phone (well, on my phone and also installed on an older phone and my tablet just in case) and one of them worked well enough that my wife could just watch it and yell out turns.

The hardest part was finding destinations on the map in a country without a proper addressing system (I'm looking at you Ireland). Before the trip, I had to go to google maps, find the place and get the coordinates, then save that waypoint in the app (I think it was Navfree) as a destination.

It was fussy, but functional and better than a paper map or nothing. The thing I really need from these kinds of apps is a good offline point of interest search. Unless you just happen to have the address (or coordinates!) of every place you might want to go, you end up missing this feature really quick. And even if the app has it, the data quality can by a major issue.

Re:Google Maps for Android lose offline Maps - seriously? by meepmorp on Wednesday July 10, 2013 @07:40AM (#6018765)
> It was fussy, but functional and better than a paper map or nothing.

Were you using the aforementioned free apps because there aren't paid nav apps on Android, or because said apps aren't any good/not suitable for you purposes? Not that your strategy is terribly bad, just wondering why it was necessary.

Re:Google Maps for Android lose offline Maps - seriously? by bane on Wednesday July 10, 2013 @07:58AM (#6018857)
In the presence of workable and decent free apps, I didn't feel the need to pay for marginally better paid apps, especially when I would probably never use the app again after the trip.