I'm confused then with no signal how did I see the Google map, I assumed the normal map was loaded on the phone. Once I feel better (I been sick) and get the dirt bike back and am away from a cell tower again...I guess I'll have to check.
Now Google earth / satellite view I could see needing the connection...how many people actually use that view??? I know I do not.
It caches the last map you were looking at, but as soon as you zoom in or out, or change locations, you need to reload the map from a data connection. Aside from cache, the app stores no map data (since it's a huge and ever changing amount of data).