Google Maps Navigation for Android now available in SA

Rouxenator said:
Well compared to what I get with [-]Ovi[/-] Nokia Maps I too believe Android's effort is a grap :D
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I have to agree to some degree. Nokia/Ovi Maps navigation is just miles better imo. Clarity on words, and timing for navigation, timing between commands and words etc, everything just better. Search and browsing with Google maps is much better. Another thing I miss from Nokia Maps is ful offline support. Hopefully these things will be addressed soon... or maybe since Nokia is out of the mobile handset business they can port Nokia maps to Android to make some money :)
 
mercurial said:
After I enable that pre-cache option, how do I go about caching it? Do I have to literally zoom/navigate through the areas I want and then it caches that?
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Touch somewhere on the map until it shows you an address. Click on the marker, and there'll be an option "Pre-cache map area"
 
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jmak said:
I have to agree to some degree. Nokia/Ovi Maps navigation is just miles better imo. Clarity on words, and timing for navigation, timing between commands and words etc, everything just better. Search and browsing with Google maps is much better. Another thing I miss from Nokia Maps is ful offline support. Hopefully these things will be addressed soon... or maybe since Nokia is out of the mobile handset business they can port Nokia maps to Android to make some money :)
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You can download sections of maps to your phone in the latest versions. Just zoom in on the area you want to download.. Long press, go to location and select "pre-cache map area".

I also found Nokia Maps to be better for navigation initially (wanted to use my old Nokia 5800 as a GPS backup), but I mostly get so annoyed using that phone that I want to chuck it out of the car window. Also the last time my Nokia phone battery ran empty halfway on a trip to Namibia, the phone then went ahead and formatted the memory card that contained all my downloaded maps and we nearly got lost... Was the first time I really wished I was less of a cheapskate and had bought a Garmin/TomTom GPS device. I think Nokia has really gone downhill with all their services. Like the last MP3 album I downloaded from Nokia Music had glitches on it.

I'm using Co-Pilot for GPS navigation on my Samsung Galaxy S. Will be interesting to see if Google Maps can now give it a run for the money, especially with offline map support! Co-Pilot does offer proper offline support and update their maps reasonably regularly. Just their desktop software for loading maps needs improvement.
 
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kamikazi said:
You can download sections of maps to your phone in the latest versions. Just zoom in on the area you want to download.. Long press, go to location and select "pre-cache map area".

I also found Nokia Maps to be better for navigation initially (wanted to use my old Nokia 5800 as a GPS backup), but I mostly get so annoyed using that phone that I want to chuck it out of the car window. Also the last time my Nokia phone battery ran empty halfway on a trip to Namibia, the phone then went ahead and formatted the memory card that contained all my downloaded maps and we nearly got lost... Was the first time I really wished I was less of a cheapskate and had bought a Garmin/TomTom GPS device. I think Nokia has really gone downhill with all they services. Like the last MP3 album I downloaded had glitches on it.

I'm now using Co-Pilot on my Samsung Galaxy S. Will be interesting to see if Google Maps can now give it a run for the money, especially with offline map support!
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I also have a SGS but when I long press and click on the location, there is no pre-cache map area option. Something I am missing here?
 
How much data does the Google maps use during navigation when you download it on the fly? Is there a way of checking what size the 10mile precache area is? Just trying to work out if it's much cheaper precaching certain areas instead of just letting it do its stuff while I drive.
 
those streetview screens look SWEEEEEET! I image that would chow bandwidth though.

good news about the other features
 
Slingshot said:
How much data does the Google maps use during navigation when you download it on the fly? Is there a way of checking what size the 10mile precache area is? Just trying to work out if it's much cheaper precaching certain areas instead of just letting it do its stuff while I drive.
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I have 7 of those 10 x 10 mile areas cached, some of which overlap, and my cache usage is 21Mb. So not very much. Got almost the whole of Durbs, JHB and CT maps on my phone. Cache it over wifi.
 
Ancalagon said:
I have 7 of those 10 x 10 mile areas cached, some of which overlap, and my cache usage is 21Mb. So not very much. Got almost the whole of Durbs, JHB and CT maps on my phone. Cache it over wifi.
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I installed 5.8 but i still dont get the pre cached maps .. on the labs there are just two options scale bar and measure .. please help me
 
Ancalagon said:
I've precached a few areas, like most of Joburg/Pretoria, Durban and surrounds, and CT. My problem is that, this weekend I'm driving down to Durbs. I cant cache the route from Joburg to Durbs because its too big. So now what? I guess it will have to use 3G the whole down to get the maps it needs. Need to buy a car holder for my phone though, what I have noticed is that my phone acquires a GPS lock far quicker than my TomTom, and can even do so under several layers of concrete.
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I did a quick test regarding the pre-cache. If you delete a precached area, it would appear that the data actually stays behind. I cached a small town on the west coast, deleted the pre-cache, turned off my data and zoomed in. Worked like a a charm. Gonna do most of the western cape tonight at home (wifi).
 
Slingshot said:
How much data does the Google maps use during navigation when you download it on the fly? Is there a way of checking what size the 10mile precache area is? Just trying to work out if it's much cheaper precaching certain areas instead of just letting it do its stuff while I drive.
Click to expand...

I just pre cached jhb central,i had 8.9Mb used before that now its sitting on 16Mb so since jhb central is a dense area i would imagine that to be close to the max data usage per point.(i.e 7MB)

Oh yes,GREAT STUFF GOOGLE!NOW MY PHONE CAN DO ALMOST EVERYTHING I COULD EXPECT OF IT!Just waiting for the x10i gingerbread update to be approved by sa networks(rest of the world has it already) and I'm sorted....
 
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HALLELUJAH, Thank You Google!!

Ancalagon said:
what I have noticed is that my phone acquires a GPS lock far quicker than my TomTom, and can even do so under several layers of concrete.
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That would be the "A" in A-GPS helping out.
 
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