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Caching maps is actually incredibly difficult. I just took a weekend trip to Death Valley (no cell coverage) and wanted to do this on my Android Evo. Google M

by dotBen 16y ago

Caching maps is actually incredibly difficult. I just took a weekend trip to Death Valley (no cell coverage) and wanted to do this on my Android Evo. Google Maps doesn't cache more than a few tiles so it's totally useless. There are a number of apps in the Market that will download maps locally - one downloads Google Map tiles illegally (with mixed success) and the rest I couldn't get to work. Do you have any advice or experience you can share?

skybrian 16y ago
Look under "Cache Settings" in Maps. There's a checkbox for "Prefetch on Mobile". If it's off and you're not using Maps while on Wi-Fi then I wouldn't expect much caching to happen. You can also see how much data Maps has cached. I don't have a data plan and I find caching works well on my Nexus One when I ask for directions before leaving the house. I haven't tried it on a long road trip though. For comparison, the cache size on my phone is 37M now.
- hippo33 16y ago
  Hmm...great idea! I hadn't thought of that to be honest.
jarek 16y ago
No experience on Android, sorry. My experience is with Maemo devices, which have the excellent Maemo Mapper software, with extensive caching options. It supports a million data sources including Google Maps and OpenStreetMap (and you can add your own). Functionality ranges from simply caching every tile it displays to a function that downloads every tile for every desired zoom level for a given area, and the area can be defined by simply what's visible on screen right now. Zoom out on NYC, press download, and you'll get every corner. I'm not sure how legal Google Maps caching is, but in my experience OpenStreet is a decent alternative in most of developed world. Having experienced this, it's really annoying when Google Mobile Maps on my Blackberry insists on redownloading the map of my neighbourhood for the fiftieth time. It's extra fun on EDGE. I also have no experience with possibly caching directions, being a man and having never needed them ;)

by dotBen 16y ago

skybrian 16y ago

Look under "Cache Settings" in Maps. There's a checkbox for "Prefetch on Mobile". If it's off and you're not using Maps while on Wi-Fi then I wouldn't expect much caching to happen. You can also see how much data Maps has cached. I don't have a data plan and I find caching works well on my Nexus One when I ask for directions before leaving the house. I haven't tried it on a long road trip though. For comparison, the cache size on my phone is 37M now.

hippo33 16y ago
Hmm...great idea! I hadn't thought of that to be honest.

jarek 16y ago

No experience on Android, sorry. My experience is with Maemo devices, which have the excellent Maemo Mapper software, with extensive caching options. It supports a million data sources including Google Maps and OpenStreetMap (and you can add your own). Functionality ranges from simply caching every tile it displays to a function that downloads every tile for every desired zoom level for a given area, and the area can be defined by simply what's visible on screen right now. Zoom out on NYC, press download, and you'll get every corner. I'm not sure how legal Google Maps caching is, but in my experience OpenStreet is a decent alternative in most of developed world. Having experienced this, it's really annoying when Google Mobile Maps on my Blackberry insists on redownloading the map of my neighbourhood for the fiftieth time. It's extra fun on EDGE. I also have no experience with possibly caching directions, being a man and having never needed them ;)