With its wealth of geographic search, customisation, and navigational options, Google Maps is the Swiss Army Knife of apps. You may utilise it to the most extent by using these pointers and tactics.
How we travel the world has altered thanks to Google Maps. The ubiquitous Google service is now more than simply a way to navigate from point A to point B by automobile, public transportation, or foot: It’s also a geographical search engine for the environment around us.
Although Google is constantly updating and improving its map product, there are many customisable features and unlisted features that are currently present in Google Maps that you may not be aware of, such as Incognito Mode. See our advice for how to use Google Maps to its most potential.
We’re Doing It Live, first
If the street you’re on is in London, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, San Francisco, or Tokyo, you can get an AR perspective of it. Hold your phone up to the camera icon in Maps and click it to scan your location. You’ll get an overlay of all the locations you’d see on Maps, making it simple to locate eateries, shopping, and other locations. In addition to Amsterdam, Dublin, Florence, and Venice, search with Live View will soon be accessible there as well.
Google Maps is useful indoors as well as out. By finding the destination in Maps, clicking on it, and then scrolling to Directory, you may navigate across shopping centres, airports, and other large structures. You won’t ever get lost trying to find a Cinnabon.
Even Live view inside is supported in some places: In Chicago, Long Island, Los Angeles, Newark, San Francisco, San Jose, and Seattle malls, as well as in airports, malls, and train stations in Tokyo and Zurich, you can get an augmented reality (AR) view(Opens in a new window) and animated arrows to guide you. The 1,000 new airports, train stations, and shopping centres in Barcelona, Berlin, Frankfurt, London, Madrid, Melbourne, Paris, Prague, So Paulo, Singapore, Sydney, and Taipei will all soon provide it. Open Maps and select the camera icon to activate the function.
- Use Google Maps to Plot Several Places
Seldom do vehicle journeys consist of travelling from point A to point B; instead, they usually go from point A to a café, library, Joe’s house, and then back to point B. Google, thankfully, makes it possible to plan actual travels. While using the Google Maps mobile app, enter your starting point and final destination before selecting more than one location from the three-dot menu in the top-right corner. This brings up a pop-over menu with the “Add stop” option. You can make a route with several stops by clicking that. Even individual destinations in your itinerary might be moved around. (Note that if you choose the mass-transit option, this won’t work.)
- Change the Vehicle Icon
Google’s iOS and Android apps enable you customise the type of vehicle that appears on your GPS while you’re driving. Enter your destination into the app to launch driving instructions. When you tap the location indicator icon, a pop-up selection with several car-icon choices—a sedan, a pickup truck, or an SUV—appears.
The fifth is “Hello Google, Where Am I Going?”
While driving, you might want to use Maps, but you don’t want to divert your attention from the road. You don’t have to with “OK Google” voice commands(Opens in a new window) on the Google Maps Android app. Saying “Hey Google, find gas stations” will display gas stations on a map, which you may view if you’ve stopped at a red light or pulled over, for instance, if you realise you’re running short on gas. Also, you can enquire about your next turn, your estimated time of arrival, and the traffic up ahead. Install Google Assistant on Android, and you’re ready to go. (You’ll need a phone with at least 4GB of RAM and Android 9.0 or higher.) On iOS
- Use offline Google Maps
Today, Maps is most helpful on mobile devices, which raises a problem: You might need Maps when you’re somewhere with spotty (or, horror!, nonexistent) connectivity. Google Maps offers offline access as a convenience. After entering an address or location, pick Download offline map from the menu that appears when you swipe up from the bottom of the screen. The concerned map will be saved if you have enough space on your device to do so. You can acquire information about local companies and step-by-step directions in the downloaded section by tapping your avatar > Offline maps to view it later.
- Using drag and drop, change directions
With the desktop version of Maps, you may drag and drop your path to go through or away from particular sites when looking up directions. Simply click and drag any section of your route to re-arrange it (this only applies to walking, driving, or bicycling directions; mass transit directions will not work).- Get Directions in One Click
You can enter in your destination address to go there, but you can also right-click on the location you want to travel on the map to bring up a pull-down menu where you can obtain instructions to or from that spot.
- Calculate any distance.
You may also determine the separation between any two spots on Earth using the right-click tool mentioned above. When you click anywhere else on the map after selecting “Measure distance,” a point (a white dot with a thick black line) will drop, and the distance between the points will be determined. Continue clicking to add points to the map; the main card will compute your overall travel distance as you do so.
- Stock Up on Food
You may order groceries online from Kroger or any of its other grocery stores(Opens in a new window), get updates on your order, share your estimated arrival time with Google Maps while you’re on your way to pick it up, and check in when you get there. simply click the link in your browser- There’s a Reason for That Tiny Guy in the Corner.
On the desktop version of Google Maps, can you see that tiny yellow person in the bottom right corner? “Peg Man” is that (or alternatively, “the Pegman”). Peg Man can be picked up and dropped on any map point to access Street View there. Peg Man will be positioned according to the perspective displayed in the bottom-left corner of the embedded map window.
