google maps offline cache

[Guest veehexx]

after a good few hours of googling and ready forums, i stumble across 'Locus' app, available from the market, for free!

it appears to be able to cache map data for various map tools including google maps.

great. download and test it.. and i cant for the life of me work it out.

I've got the maps, the zoom level required, and i now have that data on my SD card (around 2.4gb). it doesn't seem to be in google maps format, so i dont know how to get Locus data into google maps.

why am i posted here about locus? well, there's very little useful info on locus website, and also bringing some attention to what could be a potentially hugely useful tool for those that are trying to get google maps/navigator available completely offline.

[Guest Geoff2]

Sorry - haven't used Locus. However, I have recently used Google Maps 5 for navigation, and I wasn't that impressed. My gripes are as follows:

1. As you approach a roundabout, Google Maps displays a roundabout symbol, but doesn't give you any clue as to which turning you need to take. You need to listen to the voice commands for that. (You can't work it out by looking at which way your coloured route line is going as that doesn't usually become visible until you actually hit the roundabout.)

2. There aren't many settings you can play with. I'd prefer to be able to specify road types etc.

3. The voice guidance is badly synthesised.

4. You can't integrate the traffic data with navigation. (You can put up a Google traffic layer, or you can have navigation, but you can't have both simultaneously.)

5. It's very confusing/awkward to change anything during navigation. Most sat navs have an 'options' button which brings up a screen full of commonly-used icons, e.g. 're-route', 'petrol station' or 'add location'. Google Maps doesn't have any of this. If you want to find a petrol station during a journey, be prepared for 10 minutes swearing, hitting the screen and possibly hitting someone else...

I've had loads of phone-based sat nav applications, and this ranks as one of the worst. If I was to continue using it, I could imagine writing my car off struggling with the confusing menus rather than watching the road ahead.

My advice would be to go for CoPilot 8 instead. I've just installed it, and it's an excellent sat nav. It's very easy to get hold of a cracked version for free, however I'd recommend paying the twenty five quid for it as it's worth it and it will give you access to all sorts of online services.