Inability to store multiple off-line maps for when I travel. I use google maps on my nexus 7 off-line, storing all the cities I visit when I travel (4 european countries in 6 days is my schedule in 3 weeks time). By the looks of it you can't do this anymore and can only store 1 off-line map.
Found osmand (free) app, it works great. Maps galore!

Amen to that :(

As I said here, you can still store maps offline. The new version of this feature is a significant step backwards from the old one, though, as there's currently no way to view or manage your cached maps.

Here's how:

1. Adjust the map until the displayed area encompasses the area you want stored off line.
2. Tap "Search".
3. Scroll down in the card that pops up below the Search bar.
4. Tap the "Make this map area available offline" link.

I've just put my phone in Airplane mode and confirmed that the Paris, London, and Cambridge areas I'd cached were still available.

The card in step 3 is called the Explorer. Sometimes it's labeled "Explore" and sometimes it isn't; I haven't detected what drives this behavior. The Explore card lists nearby starred favorites (with a "display all" option) at the top, then some common search option icons (knife and fork, coffee cup, martini glass, and gas pump on my phone in portrait mode) followed by an ellipsis button. Tapping the ellipsis opens a "Nearby places" list, in which I've just discovered that retail motor fuel outlets are labeled "gas stations" in the US, "petrol stations" in the UK, and "stations-service" (with "gas stations" in a smaller font below) in France.

The search bar has to be empty in order to bring up the Explore card. You can clear it by tapping the gray X. If you locate a place, then clear the search bar, then tap the search bar, the Explore card for the last place you searched for opens.

I hope Google moves very quickly to improve the new Maps' usability. It has a lot of significant improvements, but no-one will learn to use them if they can't find them.

On another note, it's a commonplace observation that nothing helps you learn something better than explaining it. Thanks, FT and its members in this discussion, for giving me a little impetus to learn how this new Maps app works!

Similar feelings here. The navigation is extremely buggy. I select a destination and start navigation but then instead of showing the turn-by-turn directions (the GPS screen) it goes back to select destitation screen. I choose again, only to find out that the GPS screen is already working in the background. Then it crashes.

Then it keeps crashing again and again. Extremely frustrating.

Thanks so much AJ, I didnt know you could turn off Google Now, it slowed my phone too!

Right, except both Saved Places (top-three) and the View All drill-down only give them to me in order of most recently starred (it's not even a default preference I can change!), which is damn near useless in the mobile context unless you only make plans day-to-day. I identify points of interest months or sometimes even years out. If I'm in Atlanta and trying to remember the name of that restaurant my friend suggested a few months back that I'm pretty sure was within 2 or 3 MARTA stops of Bobby Dodd Stadium, scrolling past 30-40 places in Vancouver, Raleigh and Blacksburg I've marked since I talked to him is inconvenient at best.

If I bought the new Nexus 7, which comes with Android 4.3, I would get the new Google Maps.

But can I uninstall it and install the older version? One of the reasons I don't like the iOS Google Maps is that I can't load My Maps on them and I have dozens of them, saved from planning trips over the years.

I don't know whether you can uninstall whatever version of Google Maps comes pre-installed. Google does say they're going to add My Maps to the new version; time will tell.

If you can uninstall, you can download the last pre-redesign version of Google Maps for Android from various places. Google Maps_6.14.3.apk, then install it from your files manager.

There are two different options for looking at Starred Favorites. You need to use the first one. When you hit the little person icon you have HOME and WORK and then you have both NEARBY SAVED PLACES and SAVED PLACES in two separate lists. The nearby saved places list is sorted by distance from your current location. In fact when I was in Chicago last week it only showed me 3 saved places because the 4th one was near my home - about 350 miles away. It didn't even bother to show me them in the Nearby Saved Places list. Saved Places is sorted by the order you added them.

Bizarre -- I could swear I've never seen this option before, but it was there when I clicked on it just now. I know I got a Maps update last night or this morning -- maybe it just came through.

Thanks for the pointer! I'd still prefer the stars display consistently, but at least this is a start.

How do you find the cached maps? Do you just zoom out, scroll to the area and zoom back in?

Is there a limit to how much you can cache? Will the caches expire at some point?

BTW, you can also save a map by adjusting the displayed area, then searching for: ok maps

FWIW, 6.14.4 seems to be the last pre-design version. See https://support.google.com/gmm/answer/2650218?hl=en

I'm a bit nervous about searching for the apk - the first two copies I downloaded were different sizes.

Here's a copy of 6.14.4 http://forum.xda-developers.com/show...51&postcount=2 I haven't installed it, but I've found the exact same file (byte for byte comparison) in another location.

I have to confess that I actually liek the update. The only negative I can see is that it doesn't show the level of location precision any more (or at least I haven't found it). It's not a big deal, but sometimes it's good to know whether you have a 3m lock or a 30m lock.

In my airplane-mode testing, I found that a lot of maps were already cached. I was able to zoom out, scroll to France, and zoom in on Paris and London (which I'd cached explicitly).

The Maps app doesn't provide any information about cached maps -- no size, name, number or possible expiration dates.

Of all the undiscoverable features in the new Google Maps, the "ok maps" instruction for caching wins the prize. It's a bit ironic, too, given that the word "cache" comes from the French for "hidden".

Having watched various other Google apps evolve (including the previous Maps, which was lacking many features in its earliest iterations), I'm pretty confident the new Maps will improve rapidly. Still, pushing a major new release prematurely is a big mistake and it's gonna take a while for Google to recover goodwill this one has cost it.

Google Maps Update. I HATE IT!!
 

My lone issue with the iOS version is the map will not flip 180 degrees.

This matters because I bring an auxiliary cable for when my rental doesn't have Bluetooth, and the audio jack is on the bottom of the phone. So when I glance at it in the cup holder, at best the image has turned 90 degrees.

Is there a setting to allow the app to flip 180 degrees?