Well, we've always just mapped out his routes beforehand but since he's learned to use the phone gps he's all gung ho for that. But, yes getting an offline gps may just be the better option for that issue...but can anyone help me with how accurate and current a used one would be? He's hitting rural areas and areas around the lake that are challenging in that the addresses read like this 110 E. EMS T28 Lane W. and there is also a 110 W. EMS T28 Lane E. and T28 is hard to find on the map to start with as in its actually an access lane as opposed to a county road. I'm not caving on the increasing data usage yet but thought the previous poster was referencing ways to use wireless data with optimization as opposed to just wasting it. We already only use wifi where it is available.
I am an android user, and I *think*, based on prior forum discussions that it is much harder to control unnecessary data usage on apple products than android. That said, on my android phone, I just download the areas I go regularly on google maps so it doesn't have to pull the map info data every time I do a search (everyone should do this). When I do a search, I need mobile data (or WiFi) for a few seconds to do the query, so I just turn it on for a few seconds, complete the search, and turn it off again. I have a mobile data toggle button on my main screen - again android lets me do that.
A few iterations ago, google maps got much more data intensive. I used to just leave it on and not worry about it. Now I actually turn mobile data off while using it. If it really mattered to me, I'd look for a true offline maps app.
As for all other programs - I just manually turn off background data for everything except for a couple of messenger apps (I pay 2 cents per text, and paying data on messaging apps is even cheaper).
When I'm not using maps, I just leave background data on. Even checking Facebook and playing clash of clans when I am hanging around with nothing to do, I stay under 100MB per month easily. Just don't stream music or watch videos when you aren't on WiFi.