As many of you observed last week, Google Maps is the most widely used app and it is also perhaps one of the most useful apps out there, along with email.

The latest version of the maps features detailed maps with information on driving, transit and walking directions, 3D buildings (not much use here), local search and business reviews, and most importantly, navigation options that point users towards ATMs, restaurants, gas stations,etc.

Anyway, There are many people who deliberately avoid this app because it may seem a little confusing at first. The following are some tips that will help you get started.

Google Maps CAN be used offline: Many people avoid using Google Maps because they think they have to be online to use it and this is not entirely true. You can still use the map offline without features like reviews and up-to-date info on certain things.

Once you sign into Google Maps, click on any point of the map and then click “make available offline/ pre-cache map area”, which will make 10 square miles around that point available for offline use. So next time, you won’t actually have to use your GPRS or Wi-FI connection to actually use the map

GPS does not kill your battery: to get the best location services you need to activate your GPS system and this does not exactly kill your battery and generally goes active only when you actually use Maps ( or any other app that features GPS info like Facebook Messenger).

Activate Labs: there are actually quite a few interesting ‘Labs’ that allow users to tinker with the maps. For example, the ‘Measure’ lab, allows users to measure a distance on the map between two more points.

Google Latitude: Ever thought of actually trying to figure out your travelling habits over the past few days, weeks, months or years? Then activate Google Latitude and the ‘Enable Location History’ option. This isn’t perfectly accurate but is quite interesting. However, be careful of how you use it or share this data since it could compromise your security.

Directions: Many Google features are optimised for big cities like London, New York or Tokyo but even in Sri Lanka, Google Maps does have a reasonable system available. Trying to find directions on Google Maps is actually a lot of fun quite interesting.

It provides users with the best route (correct most of the time) and provides an estimated time of arrival (based on average walking or driving speed). Unfortunately, the app is not very good with transit data but the information it provides for driving and walking is pretty good.

By Navam Niles