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anitak1982

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Nov 10, 2017
569
300
West Central Ohio
Took a trip to Philadelphia over 550 miles, I only have the small Verizon plan of 2 gigs. Whoa both Google maps and Apple maps were burning through my data. Have To go again in 3 weeks any ideas? Well besides a physical map please. I used my Verizon up for 1 gig of data and used that up so I ended up signing up for the next level up for 4 gigs just temporarily. I just can’t afford to continue upping it
 
Buy a Garmin or some other brand of portable external GPS? Use that for the whole mapping thing and then use your data (and your battery) on your phone for other purposes.

This or you can download a navigation app with offline mapping or download google maps for offline usage while at home connected to WiFi.
 
My Garmin is so old that it would cost $79 to update the maps. Google maps was also very unreliable and would just stop working. I will try to down load maps but hope it is more reliable for the next trip
 
My Garmin is so old that it would cost $79 to update the maps. Google maps was also very unreliable and would just stop working. I will try to down load maps but hope it is more reliable for the next trip

Not sure about your location but I’ve found this offline navigation app to be useful.

Navmii GPS UK & ROI: Offline Navigation & Traffic by Navmii Publishing Ltdhttps://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/navmii-gps-uk-roi-offline-navigation-traffic/id391334793?mt=8
 
Do GPS apps really burn through that much data?

I just checked my usage and over the last 35 days, Apple Maps has used 114MB and Waze has used 70.7MB.

I'm just curious as to how much data is consumed over a long drive.
 
Do you have satellite view turned on? Try turning that off so it just shows a plain map. I use google maps all the time and never come close to using that much data.
 
I use Waze and doesn't use a lot of data. I've been on a 14 hour road trip straight and waze was on 100% of the time and only used less than 100 mb.
 
Here maps (used to be Nokia here) allows you to download the naps to use offline. It worked great for us on a trip to Death Valley with no cellular signal. But I agree with other that my mapping software never seems to use much data., although like some one mentioned above, make sure you’re using the plain maps, not the satellite view.
 
I am going from west central ohio to Philadelphia. Through the Pennsylvania turnpike. I only have a total 2 gigs and downloaded 1 extra gig from the verizon up. I burned through almost all of it. I ended up having to to up to 4 gigs before we got home. Since we just returned, we pretty much know for the most part the directions and plan on just turning it on when we get in confusing areas like through Columbus and such.

I also had a download that I think might have also been causing issues. I downloaded adaware pro that has a vpn attached. I noticed that nothing I could do would stop this from popping on and off. When I got home and had wifi I googled how to delete it and it doesn't seem I can. So I had to just disable it.
 
I am going from west central ohio to Philadelphia. Through the Pennsylvania turnpike. I only have a total 2 gigs and downloaded 1 extra gig from the verizon up. I burned through almost all of it. I ended up having to to up to 4 gigs before we got home. Since we just returned, we pretty much know for the most part the directions and plan on just turning it on when we get in confusing areas like through Columbus and such.

I also had a download that I think might have also been causing issues. I downloaded adaware pro that has a vpn attached. I noticed that nothing I could do would stop this from popping on and off. When I got home and had wifi I googled how to delete it and it doesn't seem I can. So I had to just disable it.

I think it might have had a lot to do with the adware app, or something else. I drove from NE Ohio, across the PA Turnpike, down to MD, DC & VA, and only used around 500 megs of data for the entire trip, both ways, including some time surfing the web at the hotel at night (Apple maps one way & Waze the other).
 
I called Verizon and told them how I am taking a trip for a medical appointment and what do I do about the data drain. To my surprise he put me on the 8 gigs with the $17 dollar difference in a credit. I asked him that if he could make it so it reverts back the to the 2 gig in October at the end of my cycle. He said yes. I hope this works out for me as this trip is so expensive and it's going to take a good while to dig out of the hole it is putting us in.
 
I called Verizon and told them how I am taking a trip for a medical appointment and what do I do about the data drain. To my surprise he put me on the 8 gigs with the $17 dollar difference in a credit. I asked him that if he could make it so it reverts back the to the 2 gig in October at the end of my cycle. He said yes. I hope this works out for me as this trip is so expensive and it's going to take a good while to dig out of the hole it is putting us in.
Glad you got more data for less money. However, I still think you should figure out why you're burning through so much data. Are you sure that Apple Maps and Google Maps are what is burn through so much data?

I recall Apple making a big deal about how little data is used with Apple Maps because they use vector graphics. Google followed suit shortly after.
 
Glad you got more data for less money. However, I still think you should figure out why you're burning through so much data. Are you sure that Apple Maps and Google Maps are what is burn through so much data?

I recall Apple making a big deal about how little data is used with Apple Maps because they use vector graphics. Google followed suit shortly after.
While on the trip I wasn't able to search for things without using data I didn't have. Before the trip I was using a program to block the annoying pop-ups from websites that would direct me to amazon and such. Ad-blocker pro that has an attached VPN I think might be my problem. I couldn't remove this as I would turn it off and it would pop right back on. You could see it trying to connect at the top where it would pop VPN then LTE. I got home and still don't think I can delete it but did disable it thanks to googling. But even still I am glad to have the extra data because a 10 hour drive is BORING! LOL I can now surf a bit if I want .

So do you think Apple or google for the gps?
 
So do you think Apple or google for the gps?

Honestly I think either would be fine. I tend to use Waze because they show where cops are hiding, but I’ve used apple maps, google maps and Waze and find all three o be pretty comparable. Sometimes apple maps shows the fastest route, sometimes google, and sometimes Waze. I like that apple maps is integrated with CarPlay, but all three should work once ios 12 comes out.

I’m not wild about how google harvests our data, so I try not to use them for anything (I know that Waze is owned by them & also harvests my data).
 
While on the trip I wasn't able to search for things without using data I didn't have. Before the trip I was using a program to block the annoying pop-ups from websites that would direct me to amazon and such. Ad-blocker pro that has an attached VPN I think might be my problem. I couldn't remove this as I would turn it off and it would pop right back on. You could see it trying to connect at the top where it would pop VPN then LTE. I got home and still don't think I can delete it but did disable it thanks to googling. But even still I am glad to have the extra data because a 10 hour drive is BORING! LOL I can now surf a bit if I want .

So do you think Apple or google for the gps?
Neither. Use Waze for turn by turn GPS. The police locator can save you some grief
 
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