Plus, if anything offline navigation ties into Apple’s privacy-first philosophy better than live navigation. While we can’t expect Apple to offer perfect parity with Google Maps right away, it shouldn’t have taken so long to add such a crucial feature.
The app initially launched on Android in 2008, adding turn-by-turn navigation in 2009 and offline navigation six years later in 2015. Granted, it took Google Maps a long time to add offline navigation as well.
The richest company in the world has only just got around to it 11 years after its own navigation app launched - and eight years after Google introduced the feature. Here Maps, Open Street Map, Sygic, Maps.Me and others have all offered offline capabilities for some time.
The only question we have is why did this take so long? Apple Maps has huge reach, coming pre-installed on every iPhone Apple sells, and yet it’s missing a feature that almost all its rivals have to offer - even those not owned by Google. We expect Apple Maps to operate in much the same way, once the update hits. Certain features can’t update if there’s no internet connection, like live traffic updates, but the app can still tell you where to go and how to course-correct if you ever go wrong. Google Maps’ offline navigation works so well that you barely notice when you lose coverage. It can also be configured to automatically save routes as and when you start a new trip. For those that don't know, Google Maps’ offline downloading lets you download and save mapping information from set areas. We don’t know any of the details behind Apple Maps’ new offline mapping feature, but presumably it’ll work in much the same way as Google’s. Adding offline mapping now and fixing this mistake is not a bad thing, but it’s still incredibly confusing as to why Apple waited this long. Like many of the mistakes that plagued Apple Maps after it first launched, Apple is rectifying this problem with iOS 17. Apple Maps is finally fixing a mistake it shouldn’t have made
Offline mapping still requires a decent chunk of data when you download maps, but at least you have the option of downloading the route in one go on a home Wi-Fi connection - which should have a slightly less strict data limit. It’s not a massive amount of data, but it’s the kind of thing that can add up over time, especially on those long road trips. Google Maps apparently used 0.75MB on average, while Waze’s average was just 0.23MB. According to Statista, back in 2020, Apple Maps was the leader in data consumption - with an average usage of 1.83MB per 20 minutes. There have been some reports of excessive data usage in Apple Maps, particularly after major updates. There's also the fact that live navigation eats into your data allowance.
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