Google Maps Driving Mode Launched; Features Include Predicting Destinations, Updating Traffic!
Google Inc has recently released a new update to Google Maps for Android (Maps v9.19) that includes a new feature: Driving Mode.
The new feature guesses where the car wants to go and helps in navigation to that preferred location. The new version is available for download from Google Play. Android Police was the first to spot the new feature which looked at users' location history and previous web searches to guess where that person may be headed next.
It is also said that this new functionality will be out by the end of this week, only to Android Users. And as for now, it is only made available in English at just seven countries namely: U.S, UAE, Great Britain, Ireland, New Zealand, Malaysia and Singapore.
A Google spokesperson who spoke to VentureBeat said that things are much easier with the new update.
"Now with just one tap, you'll know whether you should hit the road or put in some gym time to avoid the gridlock," he said. "With a simple shortcut on your home screen, you'll head straight into the new driving mode so you're sure to get where you're going on the quickest route possible - without entering a destination."
"Get information like ETAs, traffic updates, nearby gas prices, and quickest routes to familiar places - like home, work, and recently searched destinations - all from your home screen," he also added.
Maps v9.19 features a new setting that lets users add a driving shortcut icon on their mobile devices. The Driving mode is similar to Google Now cars in many ways, by telling to when to leave for a particular event and by predicting the travel duration, etc. While those are based on addresses that are provided to Google Now, the new mode is advanced by showing your home, work place and other recently looked up addresses.
"Destination predictions is based on home / work addresses you have set location history data, and recent search history," the Google spokesperson said, according to the site above. "Based on location and time of day, Google Map driving mode will show ETAs for recently searched-for destinations."
Google Maps' Driving Mode has to be enabled through some arcane set of steps on each smartphone before it could be used. Probably there's a bug or two that will be fixed in a new release soon.
