[advisedwang]

That has existed for a while and never went away (you can access it by clicking on the search bar and scrolling down). What is being announced now is that offline maps can be used for routing/navigation and business info.

[dogma1138]

It always downloaded and cached the area around your location and route. What new here is that you can control it and it also sounds to be persistent, it also will probably download POI and local businesses info as you've mentioned and allow you to use navigation while offline.

This is quite good for my android phone because it seems to try to connect to every metro wifi out there and doesn't fall back gracefully and quickly enough for it to be seamless. The iPhone has a better UX when it comes to this but still would be quite good especially when I go to out of the city and get edge or poor 3G connection, it also will work great when roaming and I won't have to worry about closing the navigation app or pressing anything that will trigger a new search when I'm out of the hotel and don't have wifi.

[jonknee]

Which is super handy. One of my gripes with Google Maps is that (until now) it will navigate you to a place that is out of service, but as soon as you get there it says "You've arrived!" and then takes away the route you just used without a way to get it back. Really poor usability, especially when the app knows you have no service.