Published by Steve Litchfield at 7:40 UTC, June 23rd 2018

Back in April, I reported on a new UWP client for Google Maps - it showed promise, but had a number of problems. Most of which are rectified in this new update. OK, it's still not a patch on Google Maps on Android, but it's progress and I'll take it.

There are a number of improvements made and I've tried to show them in screenshot form below:

One Achilles heel of WinGo Maps is its appalling offline map download speed. With the default of 17 zoom (tile) levels, even a small ocal map square took 30 minutes to assemble and download. I'm guessing API rate restrictions at Google's end! (right) download failures are also common, though it does remember where it got to and the downloads resume properly.

The live tile support seems to be your current location - which is fair enough. I wonder what else could/should be shown? (right) A dark theme arrives in WinGo Maps - Hooray! Admittedly maps don't look their best when dark, but you do save a lot of power on AMOLED screens.

Fluent Design on the hamburger menu - the latter is all a bit rudimentary, but it's there and adds a slick touch. Not least that the developer is switched on to the right Windows APIs.

Most importantly of all, your current position is kept centred when needed. So you can drive and walk and the map scrolls as needed, though it stops short of rotating to be 'forwards-up'/first-person; (right) the Google maps have the usual modes and you can now default to live traffic always being on.

It's not clear yet whether the routing uses the live traffic data - I think it does, though there's no facility here for live re-routing if conditions change. More for a future update, methinks!

You can buy this in the Store here, or grab a free trial to see how it works for you (so far)! I honestly think this is well worth buying and persevering with, as long as the developer keeps coding.

PS. Or stick with Windows 10 Maps, though note the current temporary hiatus.