Google Maps for android has an amazing feature which lets you store parts of maps, offline, on your mobile so that you can still access them when you are in area where either you have very weak or no network coverage.
How to enable Pre-Cache of Android Mobile :
- Launch Google Maps
- Press Menu Button and select more.
- First Clean your cache by selecting Cache in that menu.
- Then select Labs menu and scroll down to find Pre Cache Map Area feature.
- Done that, Now go to a place which you want to store offline in your maps.
- Make a long press and you will see the bubble getting displayed.
- Select it and scroll down to find option which says “Pre-Cache map area”
- This will then start downloading map tiles on your mobile of 10 Mi in radius from the area you selected.
- That Offline area will be marked so when you get back any time here you will be able to understand.
How to test it ?
- Turn of your data connection
- Launch maps and go to the area on map which you pre cached.
- See if you can zoom and cover all the roads and turns as well.
Video Demo of Pre Cache
Measure :
There is another labs feature called as measure. It works with Offline Pre Cached Maps.This feature allows you to tap any where on the map and then tell you distance between two places which you tapped. You can keep tapping and it keeps on adding update you with the distance. Its like drawing a virtual map on Google maps.
