Google Maps

Google's "Go" line of apps are lightweight counterparts designed to be limited speedy alternatives to their full-featured sibling apps. There is a Go version of Photos, Search, Maps, and more — but are they the right apps for you? The general idea of Google Maps Go is to give ...more

Tonight is the night. Christmas Eve. The night where Santa Claus and his trusty reindeer soar across the skies to deliver presents to all the good little boys and girls around the world. But tell me— do you know where Santa Claus is right now? No? But you could. Santa's work ...more

Gone are the good old days of McNally Maps and Thomas Guides. When you have something as powerful as Google Maps, why bother with anything else? Plus, you can have way more fun with Google's version compared to its paper counterparts. You can find cool things, create a fake ch ...more

When the Google Maps web app got a massive redesign earlier this year, I was pretty excited to try it out, but it was a fairly disappointing update for me. The slower load times, confusing street view, and bicyclist neglect are just a few of the reasons I don't enjoy it over t ...more

For some time now, I've been dying to make the trek to the world's largest airplane graveyard outside of Tuscon, AZ. The ultimate field trip that I never seem to get around to. Now, thanks to Google Maps, anybody can now check it out remotely: up close, high-res, beautiful.  ...more

With over 1 billion downloads on the Play Store alone, Google Maps has become a staple for those traveling. Its popularity is the result of Google consistently improving its accuracy and adding new functionality. And this was only achieved with help of you — specifically, your ...more

Spotty cellular reception is a fact of life that we all have to deal with, especially when you're traveling. For those of us who rely on our smartphones for navigation, driving through areas with bad mobile data service can be a cause for major headaches. Thankfully, Google M ...more

In about 27% of all car crashes, someone was using their cell phone. You may think texting is the big problem here, but many fail to realize that even the smallest smartphone interaction could spell disaster. Thankfully, Google Maps has rolled out an overdue feature that'll he ...more

Before starting any drive where you're using Google Maps for directions, it's vital to make sure the app is functioning correctly, specifically, navigation prompts. After initiating turn-by-turn directions on your Android or iPhone, the last thing you want to worry about is Go ...more

More often than not, road trips will include unforeseen pit stops that have to be made, no matter how well prepared you are. In the past, making an unscheduled stop may have led to headaches and delays when your navigation app got off track, but thanks to a feature in Google M ...more

Life is all about spending time together with loved ones, experiencing new places together to enjoy and create memorable moments. Luckily, Google has made it easier for us to rendezvous with friends and family at specific places by letting us broadcast our locations using Goog ...more

When driving, you can get directions hands-free by asking Siri. You can also make general map searches, show a location's details, call a query's phone number, and view traffic details. However, Siri defaults to Apple Maps for all those. If you prefer Google Maps, Waze, or ano ...more

When you need to know how to get somewhere, Google Maps is the app to beat, but the king of navigation doesn't want to stop there. Google aims to make its navigation app for more than just directions, as made clear by its recent feature that lets you follow businesses in the a ...more

Google Maps tracks everywhere you go with your smartphone, even when you're not using the app. Even if it's as mundane as your weekly grocery trip, Google Maps has it saved for you to see in its Android and iOS apps. And while it's mostly used for recommendations and your refe ...more

Dark mode is one of the most requested features these days, but it's even more important with a navigation app. If you're using Google Maps for directions while driving at night, the default white background will shock your eyes and make it harder to see the road in front of y ...more

Google Maps lets you set home and work locations for quick access to navigation. In fact, these two locations are so central to the Maps experience that if you don't have both saved, the app can be a little naggy about it. But if you work from home, there's just one address to ...more

If you want to find out the linear distance between your hotel and a landmark or restaurant you want to visit, Google Maps has a great feature that lets you quickly measure the distance between two or more points. It's perfect for getting an idea of how far places are in relat ...more

Trendy restaurants are fun, but waiting in line isn't. Too often, we arrive at a location to find a queue between us and our dinner. If only we could know when wait times were down so we could go out at the optimal time. Well, Google wants to help you out with that. A new fea ...more

When you're going somewhere for the first time, it's nice to know what the destination will look like. Street View in Google Maps is the perfect tool for that, though it's always been a little awkward to access. But now, Google added a new overlay that will put Street View con ...more

Applications like Apple Maps, Google Maps, and Waze save every location you visit or search for as a way to speed up future searches and to find commonly-frequented places. But what if you go somewhere unsavory and don't want anyone knowing? You can at least make sure that an ...more

Okay, I have a confession to make. I'm not a real New Yorker. I'm from the land of southern hospitality and steaks bigger than your newborn: Texas. I don't know how to hail a taxi yet, and I still smile at strangers on the street. I'm slowly learning how to fit in, but one thi ...more

Google Maps now allows users to share their location in real time and update their friends and family on their location and estimated time of arrival when making a trip. On Wednesday, March 22, the tech giant announced that this Google Maps app update for both Android and iOS ...more

Going out to dinner on a Saturday night can be more trouble than it's worth when you find yourself waiting for hours on end just to be seated. Thankfully, Google Maps has some very useful data that can save you from a headache the next time you head out to your favorite restau ...more

As helpful as it is, Google Maps isn't the only mapping app with augmented reality walking navigation anymore. This week, Israel-based startup Moovit introduced a new AR navigation feature called Way Finder for its eponymous navigation app for public transit and ridesharing s ...more

Ever since the announcement of The Walking Dead: Our World game last fall, publisher AMC and developer Next Games have been quiet about the title. Almost too quiet. That silence has now been shattered with the release of a gameplay trailer (see bottom of this page) for the ga ...more

Google just recently added an incognito mode feature to Google Maps for iPhone and Android. With that, you can now use Maps in private at any time, which means you can browse and search with peace of mind. The incognito feature for Maps is quite similar to what you get from C ...more

With Google Maps, we can fly from Los Angeles to Tokyo to Paris and New York—all in a matter of seconds. We can zoom in with relative ease and flock around the city of our choice, checking out restaurants, historical landmarks, traffic and scuba divers. Easily the most recogni ...more

A lot of users with newer Android devices, particularly the Nexus 6P, have been complaining about issues with their device's compass. I've experienced the issue a few times myself—when you open Google Maps and try to get directions somewhere, you're prompted to calibrate your ...more

Google Maps Live View is already one of the more useful examples of augmented reality on smartphones that is available to the average consumer today. Leveraging Google's massive Street View library, Maps uses computer vision to identify your surroundings and then overlay virt ...more

Google Maps does a lot of things well, but one feature it's always been lacking is an on-screen speedometer. Well, now you can add one with Velociraptor, and you can even set it to alert you when you're traveling above the speed limit. While Velociraptor works in other naviga ...more

For those of you still waiting for the new iPhone 5, you may be a little annoyed when you start using the new Maps application. If you're one of the many Apple users that has already updated your current iPhone to iOS 6, then you're probably already missing Google Maps. While ...more

Google is constantly changing and updating its apps to make the lives of its users easier. Google Maps is no exception, as the company now includes options for wheelchair accessible transportation routes. From now on, you can set a trip with accessibility as a priority with Go ...more

Google Maps, once considered superior to Apple Maps, has contributed to a terrible mistake for one woman. A group of demolition workers in Texas were using the service to find a worksite, and to the dismay of homeowner Lindsay Diaz, Google was entirely inaccurate. The home sc ...more

For the most part, new features for Google Maps, such as Live View augmented reality walking navigation, come to Android first. One exception is changing your vehicle icon in driving navigation, which is now coming to Android after debuting on iPhones and iPads. On both vers ...more

As intuitive as Google Maps is for finding the best routes, it never let you choose departure and arrival times in the mobile app. This feature has long been available on the desktop site, allowing you to see what traffic should be like at a certain time and how long your driv ...more

An HD remake of The Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess arrived today for Nintendo's Wii U, and Google is celebrating the occasion by swapping in Link—the protagonist of the Legend of Zelda series—for the regular yellow Pegman on Google Maps. Once you're in Street View, yo ...more

Location services company Mapbox has added new capabilities to its location-based gaming tool to fend off Google's challenge for the same mobile app category. With version 1.4.2 of its Maps SDK for Unity, Mapbox has made it easier for developers to target real-world points of ...more