Google Maps updates bring Immersive Views, Charging Stations, and more

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Google Maps has recently introduced several exciting features that promise to enhance user experience. Let’s dive into the details:

Immersive View for Routes

Google Maps now offers an “Immersive View” for route planning. Whether you’re walking, cycling, or driving, this feature allows you to explore your planned path through street-level, turn-by-turn visuals. Imagine virtually strolling down the streets of Amsterdam, Barcelona, or Tokyo before embarking on your journey. The feature is available on both iOS and Android platforms. You can also check out the streets of Dublin, Florence, Las Vegas, London, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Paris, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, and Venice.

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Google Maps will let you see your route in 3D

Image: Google

Google announced a new feature for Immersive View at its recent I/O event. Immersive View for routes lets you see every part of your trip in advance, whether driving, walking, or cycling. The feature uses computer vision and AI to combine billions of Street View and aerial images for a realistic model of the world. You can explore it in detail and get helpful information about your route.

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Google will bring its Waze and maps teams together to cut costs, reduce overlap

Google hopes to reduce overlap work in its mapping apps by merging the Waze and Maps teams. Waze's 500 employees will be part of Google's Geo organization, which oversees Maps, Earth, and Street View. There will be no layoffs as part of the reorganization, but Waze CEO Neha Parikh is expected to leave the role after the transition. Waze will continue to work as a separate app. The merge is expected to start today, December 9.

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Google ends support for Keep, Maps on Wear OS 2

Google has unceremoniously ended support for Keep and Maps on Wear OS 2 smartwatches. That means, if you reset your older wearable, you won't get to access these apps again. The most recent version of Keep on the Google Pixel Watch is 5.22.452.00.97, and it only supports Android 11 or higher. (Wear OS 2 is based on Android 9, which falls behind the latest version of Keep.) Maps also seems to limit its requirements to the latest version of Wear OS. The change might seem premature as most Wear OS smartwatches are still on Wear OS 2, but it seems Google wants to move to Wear OS 3 as soon as possible.

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