Google Maps 7

Google has been making waves with it's update to Maps. This is mainly going to focus on what has changed and what is still to come.

First thing you will notice is layers are now being called views. Which makes more sense when you think about it. You are viewing the map differently and layers are commonly a term linked with Adobe Photoshop. I will say that the views seem to work slightly faster than layers did and they are faster get to in the menu.

Speaking of the menu I believe this is the one feature most people are overlooking. Lets take a look at previous maps.

Here is what it looks like now. Essentially instead of having things all around the map (literally and figuratively) they condensed it to one slide out menu. This by the way is a new Android UI element called Navigation Draw. All developers are being encouraged to use this. Now to toggle views and get help you go here. Everything else the bar up top. Not only does this look a lot nicer it makes Maps faster to use once you get the hang of it. Less of that finger dance where you going I know it's here...

Explore:

Google Locale is now being replaced by Explore, which is basically the same thing bur different view. You will still have places and businesses around you but is represented better visually in Explore.

Location, Location, Location

Google Latitude, if you have not gotten the email, (no seriously look for it) is going away in August. Don't worry the team is already hard at work putting the locations service for friends and family into Google+. It is by no means anywhere close to where Latitude was but I believe they are driven enough to get it there. As of now this is only available on Android, presumable Google + will get an iOS update in time with Maps.

Offline Maps are still there in function. Now in search scroll down down down and you will see the bar "Make this map area available offline". The only negative is that it will only reserve a section and does not tell you the size restriction, you have to guess.


Navigation:

Google Navigation is now a part of Maps and not some weird separate app. You see a very nice interface here that gives the Nav button and off you go. Google now does live re-routing for traffic, it will come up and notify you of a faster way to get to your destination tap and beat rush hour. A nice side effect of this is when you go to the top bar you can see recent maps history. Under that is your home address that you gave Google in two taps your navigating home. Another great ability in the new Maps is how you want to get to your location based on things like shortest or fastest route. Also with public transit you can tell it to minimize your walking distance meaning there could be a faster route but you would rather get to your destination 5 minutes later and not walk several blocks over.