That's true... but any Google product that focuses on being "good offline" is fighting against the momentum of every other part of Google.

Not true, Google Maps has added offline storage over the years that is quite helpful, and the feature has gotten better.

Google Docs for Chrome can be used offline as well.

Somewhat better, maybe. It now allows me to download an area large enough to fit my entire home town. Still doesn't allow an entire country or even more, probably cause of bigger file size / more detail than the competitor i use.

But most importantly: It still requires me to sign into a google account to download an area.

Wow I missed that it requires you to sign in. I retract my statement that it has gotten better. Google can go to hell with requiring a sign in for everything.

OsmAnd is my favourite offline map. Worse for finding business but has much much better of walking only routes.

Google Maps offline has saved me a lot of headaches when traveling

I still don’t understand why they implemented this but it works very well. I wish OSM maps had the same level of offline search and routing.

I mean it's great to have a backup map if you go outside of cellular coverage. It works well overseas too, so you can save data and preload the map, or just use it offline entirely while you're travelling.

> I still don’t understand why they implemented this but it works very well. I wish OSM maps had the same level of offline search and routing.

What do you mean? Don't most OSM map apps have offline search and routing for any areas you have downloaded?

All the apps I have seen have terrible search. In Google I can type in "xxx Street Burbank" and will get a result. In OSM I have to go through state, city, zip and know all that stuff. Much worse than google Maps.

I'm happy google earth is stuck in time and offline. Such a powerful piece of software, like an arcGIS-lite. I get a file tree with folders and subfolders and subsubfolders and points of interests with metadata and notes and layers of everything and anything and I can load other people's content too?? In case you can't tell, it's my favorite google product by far, and they can't ever take it away from me because I have it on my local drive.

They can disable your access. All pictures are downloaded. I wish there was a maps feature too.