martedì 9 settembre 2008

Take offline Google Maps on your iPhone/iPod touch

I've recently been to NYC for an holiday vacation (gorgeous) and I had a HUGE problem.

NYC is Enourmous, and it's hard to always find your way, even if after a couple of hours you get that as long as you go Downtown (lower Manhattan) the street number gets lower.

eg. 
60th street is near the beginning of Central Park South
110th is on the top

Same is for the avenues (left-right), but then you get Broadway and Amsterdam Ave.....

However, I got my iPhone with me and started asking at every MObile Phone Shop for a prepaid card to be able to browse (I'm Italian and I don't want to loose a leg in roaming traffic).

The best you can get it's probably a prepaid with AT&T at cheap 0.05$/KB.
Great deal!

Although you can continuously sniff for open networks like a zoombie, here's the best option to take your google maps with you.

When you bookmark a place in google maps (when you have a decent wifi), the maps application automatically store a certain area (map size).

So if you want to go to Apple store in 5th Ave just find your place on google maps and then add to your fave.

Even when you're offline (you can try it in Airplane mode) the area nearby your bookmark will be visible, movable and even zoomable.

For best results:
Bookmark the location when in map view (no SAT view)
Before Saving the bookmark zoom out a little beet so that buildings and smaller stuff it's gone away, keeping the street names.

If you need to visit many places, you can bookmark as many location as required.

At the end of the vacation I almost got the whole Manhattan offline.

Oh yes, one more thing.
The localization still works! (most of the times)

Enjoy and don't forget to post a comment.

P.s. guess where the map and the guide were left?

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