Your initial point and example are completely unrelated. There are many examples where Google services suck without their online servers, Maps is one of the few

Your initial point and example are completely unrelated. There are many examples where Google services suck without their online servers, Maps is one of the few that can actually work really well in offline mode. Google Maps has the whole download area features[0]. If you have an area downloaded, you can see the entire area rendered at (any/most?) zoom levels, see street names, and even get directions. As for information density, it seems to be a choice of the Google Maps team to show less data at various zoom levels. That has little to do with talking to their online services and more about how the maps team wants to present data to their users. [0] https://support.google.com/maps/answer/6291838?co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid&hl=en https://support.google.com/maps/answer/6291838?co=GENIE.Plat...