Google announced on Thursday at its Search On the event that it plans to launch many new updates for Maps in the coming months. The company announced and called these upcoming launches Immersive View, Neighborhood Vibe, and Search With Live View.
According to the company, all features and updates announced are part of efforts to create a visual-first Maps experience to help users navigate more naturally.
About the Immersive View
The upcoming Immersive View is one of the features Google announced at the Search On event. Though, the company earlier announced it at I/O in May. This feature is made to help users plan and have a deeper understanding of a town or city before they visit there.
It leverages computer vision and AI technology to bring together aerial imagery and Street view with what the traffic, weather, and crowds would be like at a given time and day.
The Immersive View feature will allow people to explore by soaring visually over a place to see what it might appear like. With predictive modeling, the feature automatically learns historical trends to identify what places would be like tomorrow, next week, and month.
Neighborhood Vibe
This feature is designed to make people quickly see any neighborhood vibe via information and photos from the Google Maps community.
Neighborhood Vibe quickly shows you trendy areas to highlight the interesting things about a neighborhood. This feature will be launched globally in the coming months on iOS and Android.
Also, people can use this feature to know if a neighborhood has an artsy vibe or an interesting food scene to decide how to spend their time there. This feature wants to help users choose the best exploring things by surfacing local gems with the map.
Search With Live View
There’s also the Search With Live View feature. Google announced it’s bringing search functionality to Live View to overlay directions and arrows on top of users’ world view.
This new feature allows users to use their cameras to discover vital places like restaurants, ATMs, and shops when they’re on the move.
During a briefing with reporters, Chris Phillips, the VP and GM of Geo at Google said, “You can just lift your camera and see it overlaid on the real world ATM that’s nearby.”
“You can also see coffee shops, grocery stores, and transit stations. You get a sense of what an area is like at a glance. You can even see the business hours of a place that’s down the street. It’s an amazing way to bring it all together at once, it simplifies the experience and gives you confidence when you’re trying to see what’s around you at that moment.” Phillips added.
This Search with Live View feature will roll out in New York, London, Paris, Tokyo, and San Francisco in the coming months on iOS and Android.
Meanwhile, Google has announced that developers would soon have the option to enable Maps’ eco-friendly routing in their apps.
This Google Map’s eco-friendly routing allows drivers to view and select the most fuel-efficient route to their places or destinations.