St. Nick is departing the North Pole to begin his worldwide journey to deliver presents. Like in past years, you can follow along with the Google Santa Tracker.
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In a matter of hours, St. Nick will depart from the North Pole and begin his worldwide journey to deliver presents. Like in past years, it’s remarkably easy to track Santa through Google services on any device.
Christmas time is here and one of the most treasured aspects is about to kickoff when St. Nick leaves the North Pole to deliver presents around the world. Since 2004, the Google Santa Tracker has followed that journey and this year is no different. Google has added more features over time, like fun educational games and even the ability to Call Santa.
Every December for the past 15 years, Google has launched a Santa Tracker to monitor the progress of Mr. Claus on Christmas Eve. In recent versions, the site grew to include games that teach coding and other skills. This year, Google is making it easier to track Santa in Google Maps.
In time for the start of December, Google has updated its annual Santa Tracker app for 2017. The countdown to Christmas Eve begins today, but in the meantime there will be 24 days of activities and games on Android, iOS, and Chrome, as well as an Assistant integration.
Google’s Santa Tracker has long been popular for both the young and the young at heart, and now Google says it is open sourcing last year’s version of the application for just about anyone to tinker with. If you’re a fan of Google’s Open Source projects, I guess you could say it’s Christmas all over again…
Google knows all, including where Santa is. I’m not just talking about on Christmas Eve, but also what he’s doing while on vacation. If you want to join in on the tracking, check out the newly updated Santa Tracker website and Android app.
Both feature a countdown to Santa taking off on Christmas Eve, when people (mostly children) can track Santa’s whereabouts as he is delivering presents all over the world via Google Maps. Until then, the updated-daily site has fun activities and information on other holidays celebrated around the world.
The updated app includes several fun games where you can earn achievements and rank on leaderboards in Play Games. There are also various festive Android Wear watchfaces featuring Santa and elves. For the first time, this year there’s also a Google Cardboard component and an Android TV app that allows you to track Santa’s journey when the countdown to Christmas Eve is finished.
To partake in the fun, head on over to the Santa Tracker website and download the app on Google Play.
