‘Tis the season for holiday outings. Whether you’re running errands, exploring new places with friends or traveling to see family, Google Maps can help make navigating this busy season a little less stressful. And today, we’re sharing three updates that will help you explore and get around — just in time for the holidays.
Explore places intuitively thanks to search with Live View 🔍
In September, we introduced search with Live View to let you explore what’s around you more intuitively with the help of AI, billions of Street View images and augmented reality. Beginning next week, this visual search experience will start rolling out in London, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, San Francisco and Tokyo on Android and iOS.
Say you’re visiting New York with plans to knock out your holiday shopping and catch up with friends. Lift your phone and tap on the camera icon in the search bar to see nearby stores and other places like coffee shops, banks and ATMs. With AR-powered directions and arrows, you can see what direction they’re in and how far away they are — and even spot places that aren’t in your immediate view (like a clothing store around the block) to get a true sense of the neighborhood at a glance. To find other places to hang out, tap on different place categories to explore what restaurants, bars, dessert shops, parks and transit stations are nearby. The best part? Beyond showing you where places are, you can see key information about each spot overlaid — like whether or not it’s open, how busy it is, what the price range is, and if the Google Maps community rates it highly.