[xlevus]

I suspect this might be down to the 'dynamically generated' maps feature in the current maps.google.com preview.

Either way, unless Google has somehow managed to bypass extortionate data roaming charges, spotty local coverage, and absurd latency It's pretty much made maps useless for me.

At least before, when my phone has decided to not connect to the network, or latency has spiked up to 30s I could still look at the map and get places.

[Pxtl]

Yup. It's frustrating for me since I used a winmo device 7 years ago with TomTom that provided flawless offline maps. There doesn't even exist a comparable offline maps program for newer Windows Phone OSes... Google abandoning offline maps in the Android OS is another reflection of this trend, but the world's infrastructure just isn't there yet, especially when you leave California - here in Southern Ontario, coverage is good but the cost of data plans for all is prohibitive once you've got a family full of people with phones.

Of course, Google has been eschewing offline support throughout Android - like the anemic and non-expandable storage on their entry-level Nexus devices, pushing their cloud-based music service instead of the traditional "just load songs onto the device" approach, and so on.

This massive technological regression on disconnected mobile software is really disappointing.

[sequence7]

Windows Phone 8 has offline maps via Nokia Here, you can also use Nokia Drive to get offline navigation. Both are free and have helped me navigate without a data connection in Europe, Asia and North America.

[Pxtl]

Oh, right. I forgot that Nokia had made their exclusive thing. My phone is just a Samsung WP7 device that's getting really long in the tooth.

[sequence7]

Yeah unfortunately for WP7 you needed a Nokia device to get the Nokia apps, all WP8 devices get them though.

[fnordfnordfnord]

They should call it City Maps or something. Get a few miles from a major highway and you don't have maps anymore. It was only marginally functional anyway since you have to know the cellular coverage in the area you plan to drive, and save the map tiles yourself, which is time consuming. You often can't save enough map tiles for a long trip in advance, so you have to fiddle with it along the way, as you find coverage. It would have been so much better if this could be done in advance of a trip.