Our smartphones act as our assistants in so many different ways. They wake us up on time, take care of our communication, maintain our schedules, remind us of important appointments at the right time. They can now even suggest dishes to try when you visit a restaurant! And of course, with their inbuilt GPS, they are our navigators too.
But to use the Maps, you have stay connected to the internet which may not always be possible. Well, the app developers have found a solution to that too. There are several apps available now that provide offline maps.
One of these is Maps.Me by my.com. This offline Maps and Routing app is featured in Best Apps of 2014 list on Google Play.
I knew that my father would love such an app. So, of course, I tried it out. And found it to be really good.
However, just installing the app won’t give you the offline maps. After you install the app, you will need to open its menu and also download the map of your country. That didn’t take much time though. I just opened the menu, tapped on Download Maps. It loaded up the list of regions. I selected the appropriate region and it loaded up the list of the countries. i selected India. It gave me two options. I could download the Maps, or the Maps with navigation. I chose maps with navigation. The file was more than 200 mb in size. So the initial setup of Maps.Me better be done on a Wi-Fi network.
Once the map was downloaded, using the app was almost like using any other maps app. Just switch on the GPS, search for your destination using the Search button of the app. The search can also be speeded up by using categories like Hotels, Sights, Hospitals etc. Once the destination is selected, start the navigation by tapping on the small car icon on the top bar. And that will give you turn by turn navigation as you move along your journey.
It allows users to bookmark places of choice. And it also allows easy sharing of locations through email or SMS. It has several other nifty features as well. But the best thing about it is that it does not require internet. So no matter where you are, you can use it without worries about net connectivity or roaming charges.
And what’s more, it’s now free!
