Poor connectivity? Low storage? Don’t fret, the new Google Maps will still work

In many Asian cities, you often have to wait patiently for your driver to start the ride while the Google Maps struggles to connect with the network. Photo credit: Wikipedia.

It’s common practice in India for a smartphone user to turn off mobile data usage. The world’s fastest growing smartphone market also has the world’s most frugal mindset – which extends to data plans. This makes huge numbers of people limit the use of apps like Google Maps to conserve data.

Another constraint in India is poor connectivity. Often you have to wait patiently for your Uber driver to start the ride while the app struggles to connect with the network. And when you move to second- or third-tier cities, or go an a road trip, you’re likely to drop off Google Maps.

But all that changes today. Google Maps announced a couple of new features which take care of the twin problems of data charges and spotty connectivity – a “wifi only” mode and SD card support for Google Maps on Android, anywhere in the world.

What they enable is downloading maps of areas that you frequent or intend to visit. These maps saved offline on an SD card will then be available to Google Maps even when there is no internet connection.

Google Maps had rolled out offline support in November, but it had to be stored on the phone’s internal memory. Budget smartphones popular in emerging markets like India have cramped internal storage space – usually of just 4 GB. Even those with higher end smartphones which have 8 GB or more in storage quickly fill it up with photos, videos, and apps. So there’s little room left for maps to be stored offline.

Google Maps has solved this problem by allowing maps to be downloaded to an external SD card for offline use. In addition, it can be toggled to a “wifi only” mode to ensure that it connects to the net only in WiFi areas. These tweaks will make it easier for many more people to take advantage of Google Maps without worrying about connectivity, storage, or data plans.

The SD card and “wifi only” support is only for Google Maps on Android – the mobile OS that over 90 percent of smartphones in India run on.

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