GPS does work when out of service - but no map... 3rd party maps yet?

[Sean Dempsey]

Was in the mountains today, far, far outside of cell range.

I popped open Maps, and had it locate me. Found me in a few seconds, got the blue dot. But, my map was just a grid, of course, since it uses google maps. I put a pin down anyways, to see what it did.


got back to town, and the pin I had placed was exactly where I thought it would be, up in the mountains.

Obviously, the GPS chip can give the iphone coordinates even without cell service or internet. Why can't we have locally saved maps then and use them when we are out of range?

Makes no GD sense.

 

[domness]

There's a whole group of us thinking exactly the same thing!

 

[polishmacuser]

well you can jailbreak and install the offline maps for those occasions sadly another feature that needs to be built in

 

[Minimoose 360]

I just wish the Maps application would make a permanent cache of the maps you've loaded...so that it doesn't have to load the whole damn world from a file...only the parts your in.

 

[Rybold]

I put a pin down anyways, to see what it did.
got back to town, and the pin I had placed was exactly where I thought it would be, up in the mountains.

Obviously, the GPS chip can give the iphone coordinates even without cell service or internet.

Interesting. Thanks for sharing this experience with the rest of us. I had been wondering about that.

(Google maps should add a feature to the software that can be turned on or off that downloads all area within 30 miles of your location (if you select the option) - that way, if you go beyond the service area, you will still have a map)

 

[sibruk]

+1 for map caching. There is absolutely no need for maps to load over the internet every time you go into Maps. Just a detailed cache of your own country/state would be a real step forward. Of course there's probably a real tangle of rights issues there, so it will probably never happen without Apple paying some sort of licence fee.