Google Maps navigation extended to 19 new countries, brings back Offline
Yesterday, the rollout began for the major redesign of Google Maps for Android, but the major redesign was apparently just the start, because Google has brought even more changes to Maps, including adding navigation for over 19 new countries and brought back a feature that had been removed from the new update.
The new update for Google removed Latitude, because the service is being retired, but for an unknown reason the update had also removed the option to save maps for offline use. Latitude isn't coming back, but offline maps has made a comeback with a minor update to the Android app.
Additionally, navigation is being extended to 19 new regions, and is being brought to full support for two more. Until now, Algeria and Bahrain had limited navigation functionality, but that has now been updated for full use. The brand new regions added to navigation support are:
- Africa: Cameroon, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda
- Latin America: Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela
- Asia: Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand
- Europe: Slovenia
- Middle East: Oman
According to Android Police, this is the biggest expansion of Google's navigation service to date. Not a bad set of updates.
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