April 14, 2008
Google Maps offline for iPhone
Google Maps are one of the most useful applications for mobile devices. Google Maps is relatively fast and easy to use. Apple has preinstalled an Google Maps application on their iPhone. For all people, who do not have a flat-rate contract with their provider and want to have full benefit of Google Maps, there is an nice little Tool called “Maps Offline” where you can download parts of Google Maps data for your iPhone.
The tool can be installed on the iPhone easily (only the Jiggy Framework is needed. Once installed, the users can download maps about various areas. The size of these areas only depending on the iPhone memory itself. In some cases this could be very useful, considering that the city area of Berlin requires 100 MB for the satellite photograph and 40 MB for the map.
Personally, I cannot varify this information because I’m not an owner of an iPhone. Maybe someone can give feedback on this.
[via GWB]
Written and submitted from Home, using my 802.11g WiFi network.
Sounds like copyright infringement to me.
Yes it does work. But im not so sure you would need 40 MB for just the map.
I have installed it on the iPhone. I can successfully load maps in Maps Offline, but when you switch off your Edge and WiFi, the Maps application cannot find the maps anymore. As that was whole purpose of Maps Offline, the application is either pretty useless or doesn’t work.
I use Maps Offline on my iPhone and it does work even when Edge or WIFI is off. You can save the Google Maps.app cache which will display the cached street maps and satellite maps using the Maps Offline app. Very handy.
“You can save the Google Maps.app cache”
that´s true.
“which will display the cached street maps and satellite maps using the Maps Offline app”
But how? I can only save maps, but can´t find a way to launch them.
Thx
Hi
i am Nam the developer,
if you have any problems, please look at my Help Pages, they are made for this.
The most common Problem is when you cant see the map, that youre not in right position.
So ensure that you are in berlin for example when you restored the Berlin Map.
For this reason you could place a bookmark on Berlin, when youre online.
nambrot.com
This app simply does not work. I cannot get files to copy.
Nam,
Please link the “help pages”. I see no such selection on your site.
after downloading the maps on your iphone, you need to create a search file using openstreetmap.org or simply bookmark the place first and the save it on your iphone…
but i did it using the tools the was explained on nambrot’s website
1. create maps using mapthis!
(download site: http://nambrot.com/index.php?option=com_ionfiles&func=download&fileid=2 )
2. copy maps on your iphone’s cache folder
For 1.1.1 and 1.1.2. User its: /private/var/root/Library/MapsOffline/Cache/
For 1.1.3 and 1.1.4. User its: /private/var/mobile/Library/MapsOffline/Cache/
3. create a search file using the MapsoFFLiNeuTiL(included on mapthis! program directory) and copy it on your iphone
For 1.1.1 and 1.1.2. User its: /private/var/root/Library/MapsOffline/Street/
For 1.1.3 and 1.1.4. User its: /private/var/mobile/Library/MapsOffline/Street/
for more info visit :
http://nambrot.com/index.php/home/33-mapsoffline/49-how-to-create-offline-street-search-files
its a breeze…
Hey guys, can this app be used with iPhone 3G? and actually use the inbuild GPS to navigate with preloaded maps?
Hey I posted a method to get maps to work on 2.0 using symlinks on my blog http://iphoneapplication.wordpress.com/category/tips-and-tricks/ try it out, it doesn’t take so much space etc.
My MapsOffline behaves in a strange way, see if anyone can tell me why, When i load maps upto size 50 MB, the Maps crashes and deletes the previously saved maps of a city. Now that just means if i have 49.9 MB of Melbourne and i attempt to open maps for some new area (while online) the whole sqltb file is deleted. So i end up downloading the whole cities area map again.
will mapsOffline also work with a non-jailbroken IPhone?? I have the latest G3 model with latest software version 2.1 and will maintain my t-online flat rate but may need maps and GPS when outside Germany
Any answer and support is wellcome
Jens
Face the truth.
Having offline maps would not overload google’s traffic as the oters say! In fact it would decrease the traffic because you would download them once and no more. Instead of nowadays downloading them 100 times/day. Google needs traffic so it can “be in charge”. You have to spend their traffic and be in need of their servers (that is how they make money). If they give you offline maps, they lose traffic (lose money). On the other side having a small cache leads you to spend mobile internet something like 3G (since you can’t have wi-fi througout the whole city) and you have to pay for it to your mobile provider. I guess google has some share out of it.
I changed to Garmin long ago, it has no satellite view, but it has detailed maps better than google… even with house numbers! Speaks all you have to do while driving “turn left after… etc”. Features that google can still dream of since they are occupied with the useless theme “StreetView” or with other words… “spend traffic – earn us money”. I just came to see if the “monopoly” has changed something in the past year. That is because they still have those detailed satellite maps. Don’t bother, nothing has changed!
The first one other to get those maps Nokia or Yahoo is good bye google forever!
Neither google search is what it used to be… worst paid commercials are always on top. Ask for any driver, type the brand and you dont get the brand’s web… you get Driverguide.com. I can’t remember last time I found something useful!
@Meow
The reason that Google won’t let you download the map data is because they don’t own it. If you open up Google maps and go to some random location, chances are, you will see “Map Data ©2009 Tele Atlas”. The company Tele Atlas is owned by Tom Tom, and they don’t like it when people steal their maps. Google has a special agreement with them, obviously, so Google maps gets to show it off, but Tom Tom has forbidden them from allowing downloads of such things.
Actually, Google allows you to already download their maps to your iPhone’s memory and cache by using their mobile browser at maps.google.com, and clicking on the download link.
@PacMaps Where is this “download” link located??? I can’t seem to find it.
Thanks