Traveling means discovering new cities and what better way to do it than with Google Maps in hand? The company has introduced a series of novelty to make using the app even easier and more immersive.
Immersive View, new to Google Maps, is spreading to new cities
At the beginning of 2023 the Immersive View has entered the app to transform the way the user wants to explore. An artificial intelligence was used to blend the many images together and create a multidimensional dimension of the world.
This feature comes to new cities for Android and iOS users: Florence, Venice, Amsterdam and Dublin, list that will become much longer. Iconic landmarks from around the world are included, such as some monuments from the various Italian cities that are featured in the list, such as Milan, Rome, and Pisa.
How Immersive View works
How does it work? It’s very simple: Just search for the city of interest on Google Maps and tap on the first one video to virtually fly over the building and find nearby places. With the time slider, you can find out the weather forecast at different times of the day and how busy the area will be, so you can plan ahead. Not only that: you can take a look inside the locals that tell you in real time how crowded they are or not, to figure out whether to book or not. The artificial intelligence technology used for this modality is the Neural Radiance Fields, developed by Google.
News Google Maps: Quick Directions to follow the progress of the trip
Quick Directions is another novelty of Google Maps that will be available starting from the current month. It is used to easily follow the travel professionals directly from the lock screen or from the route overview. It will be available for walking, cycling and driving modes on Android and iOS.
Updated the Recent option on the desktop
When traveling, a key thing to do is keep track of the places you want to visit. For this reason Google has created Recent on desktop to help the user better plan their destinations.
Using this feature is very simple and fast. It’s possible remove displayed places, plan multiple trips at the same time and share a selection of places, such as attractions or hotels, with their travel companions to get their opinions. Once the user knows where to go, select three or more destinations, click “directions” and Maps will create a personalized route that touches all of your stops. This will then be saved in the Recent box.