Following yesterday’s MWC 2019 announcement that more phones will feature dedicated hardware buttons, Google is expanding where users can access Assistant. It will soon be available in Messages for Android, and coming to more languages in Google Maps.
The opioid crisis in the U.S. is an ongoing public health emergency, with Google noting that searches for “medication disposal near me” reached an “all-time high” in January. In light of that, it’s now easier to find those locations in Google Maps and Search.
In recent months, Google Maps has added a number of features from a complete Material Theme redesign to revamped trip sharing. The latest update adds a new feature to the “For you” tab that allows users to follow stores and get updates.
Last month, Google Maps rolled out speed limits and speed camera alerts, while making the Google Assistant feature official at CES 2019. Google Maps 10.10 is now in beta with a new “Personal events” setting, work on automatically deleting Location History, and more.
A report yesterday revealed that the upcoming Google Maps AR navigation mode is first being tested with Local Guides. Google is now detailing the “global localization” technique behind the feature and how it leverages a Visual Positioning Service, Street View, and machine learning.
While real-time Google Lens was the big augmented reality announcement at I/O 2018, another exciting in-development feature was teased. Google Maps is working to leverage the camera to overlay walking directions, business listings, and other helpful guides. A first look today details the interface and that’s it coming first to beta testers.
Slowly but surely, Google has been applying its Material Theme to Google Maps for Android. This week, it seems a server-side change has added Material Theme to the search interface of the popular navigation app.
Google Maps is a very powerful navigation tool, and it’s only getting better lately. Now, a new feature is rolling out to users on Android which assists in improved trip planning.
After being in testing for over two years, Google has finally widely launched speed limits within Google Maps this week. Following a smaller rollout earlier this week, the feature is now rolling out on a much wider scale in regions around the globe.
The ability to show speed limits is a highly requested feature for Google Maps, but it’s never seen a wide rollout. After going live for the Bay Area as far back as 2016, it seems we’re finally seeing an expansion to a few more areas around the United States.
Slowly but surely, Google Maps has been testing some useful reporting features similar to what’s seen in Waze. Now, it appears Google Maps is testing out new speed trap alerts with some users.
Back at I/O 2018, Google announced a navigation-optimized Assistant for Google Maps. It began rolling out in December, and is now officially available on both Android and iOS at CES 2019. Voice commands let users safety interact with their phone while driving and adds new features like auto-punctuation for replies.
In 2017, Google introduced the first major upgrade to Street View cars in eight years aimed at capturing higher-resolution images. The Google Maps team is now slimming down the Street View Trekker backpack used for capturing 3D imagery on the go.
Android’s share sheet is notoriously slow and clunky, with Google promising a redesign that is “much faster.” The backend architecture needs a revamp, but the interface itself contributes to the problem. Google Maps is now rolling out a new sharing menu design that does a great deal to address the problem.
Google offers up quite a lot of free perks to its Local Guides users, and that’s because they help so much with improving Maps. For the holidays, Google appears to be sending out a pair of nifty socks to some Local Guides.
In a blog post today, Google announced that Google Maps can now show you the location of Lime battery-powered scooters. The electric scooters are available to rent in 13 US cities: Austin, Baltimore, Dallas, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, San Diego, Oakland, San Antonio, San Jose, Scottsdale and Seattle.
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Since I/O 2018, Google Maps has received a number of major updates from the Google Material Theme to “Explore” and “For you.” The latter is now widely rolling out to over 40 countries on iOS and 130 new countries on Android.
Back at I/O 2018, Google announced that Assistant was coming to Google Maps. Specifically, a visually compact and less disruptive version would appear when getting directions. This navigation-optimized Google Assistant is now rolling out in Google Maps for Android.
Google Maps in recent months has received a flurry of new features from business messaging to following stores for deals. The latest is a minor tweak to the navigation drawer on Android that adopts the Google Material Theme.
Since I/O 2018, Google Maps has seen a slew of updates from the Google Material Theme to focus on personalized location suggestions. Last month, it added a “Follow” button on listings to get store updates, with Google Maps for Android and iOS now adding a business messaging feature.
Over the summer, Google starting testing out Waze-like reports within Maps for incidents such as a crashes. Now, it seems the company is building on that feature with new Google Maps reporting features that a few users are seeing.
Google has slowly been adding a dark mode to several of its applications, including YouTube and Google News. For quite some time, Google Maps has supported a “Night” mode, which turns the navigation interface dark. However, that feature is not able to be manually toggled. Today though, we’ll show you how to force that setting to stay on all the time. Here’s how to force Google Maps dark mode on Android.
In recent months, Google Maps on mobile has been completely redesigned with a Google Material Theme, Explore, Commute, and most recently EV charging stations. The Android app is now getting improved live trip sharing that is also coming to iOS.
Following recent updates focused on upgrading Commutes, Google Maps is now working to improve the experience of finding charging stations for electric vehicles. Optimized search and listings surface more detailed information like ports availability, and supports Tesla, ChargePoint, and several other networks around the world.
