In the opinion of many, especially developers of alternative navigation applications, the main fundamental flaw of Google Navigation has been that it requires you to be connected to a data plan in order to use it. Google has offered a partial remedy to this with cached routes, where Google Navigation will automatically store your route and the surrounding areas in case you happen to lose coverage along the way. Though this solution is helpful, it doesn’t go all the way as Google Navigation is rendered useless if you wish to navigate to a different location but happen to find yourself in a dead zone.
AllAboutPhones is reporting that a full-fledged solution should land on Google Navigation sometime this summer, adding full offline map support. Once this update drops, Android users will no longer need to rely on their data connection to get them from point A to point B. From how this functionality is delivered in other applications, we assume that Google’s solution will require users to download a maps package for their region (most likely U.S. only to begin with), and store that data on either the phone’s memory or an external SD card.
What’s missing from this report is what price, if any, Google will charge for this service. Though I would like to see Google continue to offer an amazing navigation service at no cost to the end-user, I have a feeling this may not be the case. That being said, we’re hopeful that Google may surprise us with this one.
What do you guys think? Will this service be free? If not, what would you be willing to pay for it? Let us know in the comments.
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