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I just saw this link

https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2015/11/navigate-and-search-real-world-online.html

and was wondering if there is a way with using this downloaded map in my own mapping application.

Like if I go to Google Maps, download the area, and then in my own app upload that area and use it as offline use.

Has anyone been able to do this or is Google ever going to allow this?

Beren
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  • I imagine that the google maps app keeps all that data in it's private store, that other apps cannot access. You can embed google maps in your application as a fragment however, and it works pretty well. Some features like navigation are not available when you do this however. – alzee Dec 15 '15 at 22:23
  • I use Google Maps as a fragment in my application. However, my users rarely have a wifi signal to even get maps access. Without it, maps won't show up. That's why having maps offline would be nice to have. – Beren Dec 15 '15 at 22:25
  • The regions you download in the main maps app aren't available when it's in a fragment? That's odd. Can you select the region and download it in the fragment, or is that feature not available in the fragment? I haven't ever tried myself. – alzee Dec 15 '15 at 22:28
  • It's not available in the fragment. At least as far as I can tell. When I have wifi, I can pan around an area to cache at least a small part that will sometimes work offline. But that still requires an initial wifi connection. – Beren Dec 15 '15 at 22:30

1 Answers1

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Is it possible? Yes,it is possible, there are different ways to do it, here you can find one: * TileProvider using local tiles

The problem is that

Google do not allow it.

On their terms and permissions about google maps API (http://www.google.com/permissions/geoguidelines.html) on "Using maps on the web or in applications" they mention:

"When using the Google Maps API, certain restrictions may apply. Google continually updates the imagery within Maps; thus, caching may result in stale or even impermissible imagery. You may also not mass download or use bulk feeds of any Content, including but not limited to extracting numerical latitude or longitude coordinates, geocoding, text-based directions, imagery, visible map data, or Places data (including business listings) for use in other applications."

On the hand, there are other maps providers that allow this practice. Some of them:

-Open street map:

-OSMDroid

-ESRI/Arcgis (arcgis is based on ESRI's cloud services)

is Google ever going to allow this?

Google maps introduced last month (November 2015) the offline mode, does not only download the map, but also the different locations (images, tiles, etc) within. Even if downloading just the maps is possible since 2012, maybe the introduction of offline features can change their perspective over their offline assets terms, but until they do not change their permissions agreement, it is just speculation.

Community
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Alex Gamboa
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  • If caching will be problem then can't we update Google map data if internet connection is available? – Ganesh AB Mar 15 '18 at 10:50
  • The text in your post about bulk data not being allowed by google doesn't appear in the url you posted. Maybe this has changed now. Does this mean google allows getting offline map data for offline use now or do we still need to get tiles from other providers? – Imran Suhail Jun 26 '18 at 16:13