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I don’t know about you, but in my line of work, I often find myself off the beaten path in the middle of nowhere. In times like these it’s super helpful to have maps that I can still reference, even without an active internet connection. For the most part, if you don’t already have the poor coverage area pre-loaded in your map program, you won’t have the ability to interact with the map.
This can be a huge inconvenience when I am trying to pin-point specific particular lat & long coordinates.I really wanted to be able to accomplish this in Apple Maps. However, after some searching around, I just couldn’t figure out how to make it happen, nor could I determine if it is even a possibility. No worries, though, Google Maps is a perfectly good alternative, and even a preference for many iPad users. Just in case it’s not already obvious, though, you will need to have an iPad capable of connecting to a data service (LTE + Wi-fi) in order to track your location on a saved offline map, since the Wi-fi only versions do not have built in GPS.To create an offline Google map on your iPad first–launch Google maps. Next, in your current location view, click on the three stacked lines in the upper left corner. This will open your map settings where you will be able to select Your Places. Once opened, all your saved locations will be listed.
When you scroll to the bottom of your list (if you even have any saved locations) you will see the option to save a new offline map.Once selected, you can zoom out to capture the maximum extent of the content you wish to save in your view. If you pan out too far, the save button will become inactive, and you will have to zoom in a little further. After you have the map view you wish to save, you can now name the offline map for future recall.As an added bonus, Google will prompt you to update your map once/month–which is especially nice to keep track in areas of more active development and sprawl. Of note, though, the offline maps that you create and save are a “snapshot” of sorts, and by definition cannot be searched or used for directional instruction. You can, however, still pan and zoom around the map–which, for me, is the most important feature I use anyway. Thanks for your comment, David. You may have missed it, but I said in the very first paragraph that you had to have your maps pre-loaded in Apple Maps in order to be able to navigate and use off-line maps.
If y ou have a question or want to save time when using Google Earth, check out these tips and lesser-known tools. Important: These tips are for Google Earth web and mobile, not Google Earth Pro. On your iPhone or iPad, open the Google Earth app. In the top left, tap Menu Map style.
In addition, the WiFi models of the iPad do not have GPS, regardless of whether it has a WiFi connection. WiFi can provide limited geo location by using the known location of nearby WiFi access points, but that is not GPS by any means–and it most certainly will not give you true navigation. The Apple Maps app uses passive GPS modes when there is no constant Wifi or cellular signal, so if you pre-loaded your map or route, you can track your location on your pre-loaded map.Comments are closed.
Google has just updated its Google Earth iPhone app to work with the iPad. The free app brings the desktop Google Earth experience to Apple's latest device.
In addition to offering native iPad support, Google Earth 3.0 also adds a road layer for the iPad and the iPhone 3GS. Testing the app on our 3G iPad, we found that the built-in GPS unit worked quite well when determining our exact location, and that the optional tilt function was great for controlling the axis of the globe to pinpoint location and find out additional information. If you've never used Google Earth before, think of it like a giant scalable world map that has the added benefit of not only Street View and terrain indicators, but also pulls in information from Wikipedia, photos added by other users, and the locations of businesses and Google Places.
Our only real complaint is that we got an 'Out of Memory' message a few times while testing the app. This is the first time we've seen this message in more than two months of frequent iPad usage, and while we imagine it's because the constant redrawing of satellite and Street View imagery is taxing on the iPad's available memory, this is still something we hope Google can address in a future update.
You can check out our gallery to get an idea of what the app looks like on the iPad.
What do you think of Google Earth for the iPad? Let us know!
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