Comment by Tijdreiziger
2 years ago
This post is about an offline maps app which is maintained by volunteers, so it can't be that hard for the likes of Google.
2 years ago
This post is about an offline maps app which is maintained by volunteers, so it can't be that hard for the likes of Google.
Google could certainly design a basic offline mapping app. They even have offline mapping in their app today.
I’m actually not even sure what the complaint is actually about since I don’t use offline myself, but I know that Google Maps is a massive app with tons of teams all working on a myriad of features in parallel and a huge dependency tree. So I’m not surprised at all if there are a bunch of features with online assumptions baked in.
As an egregious google maps power user, these are the ones that bother me:
1. Offline maps don't actually download all the destinations in the mapped area
2. Google maps is bad at displaying densely packed businesses - this is an issue online as well
3. No offline bike or transit directions
These are the 3 I checked immediately in organic maps, and all work significantly better there.
I think your point is reasonable, but I'm also a very high income person who thinks nothing of buying data plans when traveling internationally and has an unlimited plan in the US. I routinely meet people while traveling who have the opposite set of financial priorities, organic maps is probably a great choice for them.
Supporting offline would take design, effort, and testing.
Anything can be done. But you can't do everything.
Sure but Google could surely do this.
Offline maps in Google have been blocked also by map data license terms - their providers just dont want to allow this, as they want to sell it as premium thing.