Google Maps has graduated from being just a digital map for use on the go. With time, it has added more features to make Maps a part of living on the face of this planet, especially in urban areas. Some time back, you had Google Maps showing not just distance between two places, but bus numbers, available app cab options, etc.
That is not all! Google has now launched 2 important features to simplify life for car drivers as well as pedestrians. The first features was around for a short while and is now being launched for iOS. This feature will help you find out how busy a particular location is at a point of time. By gleaning location data from anonymous mobile phones in a particular grid, it can quickly figure out how busy a particular spot is. You can adjust your time accordingly if you are planning to pay a visit or you are on the way in your car.
The ‘Live’ feature on Google Maps handle this function. Other than offering you details about the busyness of a location, it can provide insights about how much time people are spending there on an average. However, this feature is apparently viable only for business locations which are popular on the business circuit. You can use this feature through your iOS phone by downloading the latest version of Google Maps.
The next feature to note is somewhat similar but probably more useful: it shows you how busy or otherwise a parking spot it. Parking is a perennial problem across the globe in all metro cities. You are often stranded with your car when an important meeting slips by because you can’t find a space to park your car. That will change with this feature on Maps.
Using this feature is easy too: just type in directions to your destination and the parking icons will appear. If they are denser, the indication is a busy parking zone. The icons’ density ranges from easy to moderate to limited availability. As of now, only 25 metro cities in USA has this feature, including cities like San Francisco, New York City, Washington, Houston and Philadelphia, to name a few.
