Google today announced the Android app of Google Maps has received the possibility to save offline maps and also to navigate offline. The feature is an improvement over the current offline maps feature which only allows to view a part of a map offline.
The download feature is now more prominent available as the image above demonstrates. You can select a specific area and the app shows how much storage space it will consume after which you can start the download. Besides viewing the map it's now also possible to use turn by turn navigation when offline.
As soon as the app notices the phone is offline it automatically enables an 'offline mode'. When the phone comes online again the full version of Maps becomes available that besides directions also shows live traffic and weather information.
In the announcement of the feature the search giant doesn't mention that downloaded maps expire. In an image posted along the announcement this appears to be the case nevertheless. In this case the map of San Francisco expires in 29 days.
For now the offline maps with navigation feature is only available on Android. According to Google it should also become available to iOS soon.
