Google Maps issues and questions

[blackdogAC]

This is a actually my first smartphone. Previously I have used a Samsung Galaxy Player... Wi-Fi only device. I used to download maps of an area on Wi-Fi and save to memory. Then, on Wi-Fi, search a destination , activate Navigation, and once it's on, move off the Wi-Fi and drive. Navigation works fine and you get full turn by turn with voice. Pretty cool... no data use.

Recently on a trip out of my area I used Maps and Navigation and racked up some significant data usage. Man, Maps really CHEWS data!

Question: If I dl a map of area, shouldn't data use be very minimal since the map the biggest chunk of data, is already on board? Any tricks people know of to reduce data usage?

 

[STARGATE]

I know you can use Google maps offline by downloading the map you need. I've done before, not for saving data since I have unlimited but because I'm afraid of not having signal in some areas along the way.

 

[idon12no]

I was recently on a road trip where I used the phone's navigation to get everywhere I went. What's interesting is that I found myself in an area where I appeared to have no signal, but the navigation kept working until I exited the app to do something else. Not being able to get the route to work again made me wonder how long I had been without signal, and, like you asked, if there was some type of preloading of the trip that allowed the app to work offline.

T-Mobile G3

 

[AndroidPhene]

I was recently on a road trip where I used the phone's navigation to get everywhere I went. What's interesting is that I found myself in an area where I appeared to have no signal, but the navigation kept working until I exited the app to do something else. Not being able to get the route to work again made me wonder how long I had been without signal, and, like you asked, if there was some type of preloading of the trip that allowed the app to work offline.

T-Mobile G3

Google Maps also offers you the ability to save maps for offline use, so when you don't have reception or low on battery, you have another means of directions.

 

[blackdogAC]

Yeah, as I said in my post, I understand that you dl maps for offline use, and fire up Navigation while on Wi-Fi. But what I'd like to know more about is data usage. Should it be pretty low if I have the maps of the area dl to memory previously? Is it generally recognized that maps Navigation is a data hog? With about three hours of use I racked up close to 0.6 gb.

 

[Joltcola1234]

Yeah, as I said in my post, I understand that you dl maps for offline use, and fire up Navigation while on Wi-Fi. But what I'd like to know more about is data usage. Should it be pretty low if I have the maps of the area dl to memory previously? Is it generally recognized that maps Navigation is a data hog? With about three hours of use I racked up close to 0.6 gb.

That's not a lot of data

 

[blackdogAC]

It's a lot of data if you have a one gig plan. And it's ten x the data of any other app usage on my phone.

 

[fsfty]

600mb in 3 hours of nav? Doesn't sound right...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Crimsonforce]

600mb in 3 hours of nav? Doesn't sound right...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yea my maps never uses that much. I use it relatively frequently and have never noticed it towards the top of my usage list. I have 6 GB plan..

 

[blackdogAC]

Well it used that much for me. Seriously surprised me... especially since I had map segments for the area preloaded!