Google Maps – Best Tips & Tricks (2019)
Google Maps Stay Safer Feature
Google Maps has been updated with a new Stay Safer feature. The feature is aimed at increasing the safety of users who use the application to navigate routes, but don’t drive or ride a vehicle themselves.
The new feature is accessible once a user has chosen a route. It has two further options to choose from. You can choose to get updates if you go off-route and also share the status of your trip with someone else.
Tapping on the Stay Safer brings two new options called get off-route alerts and share live trips.
In case of the off-route option, Google will notify you if your driver goes more than 0.5km off the given route.
Your phone will buzz if the driver deviates more than 0.5km from the Google Maps suggested route.
Users can then tap to see where they are compared to the original route, and speak to the driver about the confusion in route.
Alternatively, the users can also choose to share live trip with friends and family directly from that screen so they know and can keep track of your journey as well, for added safety. The ‘share live trip’ option lets you share your location on most social apps like Facebook, WhatsApp, and Slack, and also shows you, often-contacted individuals.
The feature is only available for Android users currently. Google has not revealed when iPhone users can expect to get this functionality on their phones.
How to Find Popular Dishes of Restaurants using Google Maps?
I’m sure you’ve searched for Restaurants in Google Maps Explore Nearby feature. This feature enables you to see popular restaurants nearby. You can see restaurants in different categories like ‘open now’, ‘top rated’, ‘visited’, ‘haven’t visited’ and some other filters.
When you’re trying out a new restaurant, Google Maps already shows you how to get there, photos, reviews and ratings. Now, you would be wondering what is the most popular or rated dish of this particular restaurant.
The good news is Google Maps is now making it easy to “dish-cover” a restaurant’s most crowd-pleasing meals with a new popular dishes feature.
Google Maps Popular Dishes Feature
Google Maps now highlights a restaurant’s most popular items on the menu, so you can place your order with confidence.
The popular dishes feature is powered by a machine learning algorithm that matches dish names, provided by Google Maps users, with relevant photos and reviews.
This creates a handy arrangement of a restaurant’s most popular meals right at your fingertips in Google Maps.
DID YOU KNOW THAT Google Maps’ LIVE Popular Times Feature Saves Your Time
How to Use Popular Dishes Feature in Google Maps?
Simply, launch Google Maps. You’ll see Explore by feature. This feature helps you in finding Restaurants, Coffee shops, Attractions, Hotels, Pharmacies, ATMs, and some more.
Click on Restaurants from this menu and select the restaurant you want to visit.
Scroll down and you’ll find Popular dishes. Scroll left-right to select the desired dish and click on it.
Clicking on the dish gives you an idea of the dish based on the photos, reviews and ratings of the local guides.
Under popular dishes, you can also add dish.
[VIDEO] How to Find Popular Dishes of Restaurants using Google Maps? [Urdu/Hindi/English Captions]
How to Use Google Maps to Help Someone Find You?
Google Maps is one of the greatest services provided by Google. It is great for helping you find your way — or even helping you find your car — but the app can also help other people find you.
Google Maps has an easily overlooked feature for sharing your real-time location with someone so they can see exactly where you are, even if you’re moving, and then navigate to your location.
You can use the same feature to let a trusted person keep tabs on your travel progress to a particular place and know precisely when you’re set to arrive.
Did you know that Google Maps can help you in Finding Your Parked Car? Click here to know how it is done.
How to Share Your Real-Time Location?
Open the Maps app on your iOS or Android device
Tap the blue dot, which represents your current location, then select “Share location” from the menu that appears. (If it’s your first time using Maps for such a purpose, your phone may prompt you to authorize the app to access your contacts before continuing.)
If you want to share your location for a specific amount of time, select the “1 hour” option, and then use the blue plus and minus buttons to increase or decrease the time as needed
If you want to share your location indefinitely — until you manually turn it off — select the “Until you turn this off” option
On Android, select the person with whom you want to share your location from the list of suggested contacts or select an app (like Gmail or Messages) to send a private link. You can also opt to copy the link to your system clipboard and then paste it wherever you like.
On an iPhone, tap “Select People” to choose a person from your contacts, select “Message” to send a private link to someone in your messaging app, or select “More” to send a private link via another communication service. Your phone may prompt you to give Maps ongoing access to your location before it moves forward.
If you share your location within Maps itself — by selecting a contact as opposed to sending a link via an external app — the person with whom you are sharing your location will get a notification on their phone.
In addition, when you select “Location sharing” in Maps’ side menu, you will see an icon on top for both you and the person you’re sharing with. Select the person’s icon, and a bar at the bottom of the screen will let you stop sharing, share your location again, or request that the person share their location with you.
How To Stop Google Maps from Sharing Your Location:
- Open the Maps app, and look for the “Sharing your location” bar at the bottom of the screen
- Tap the “x” next to the line that says how and for how long your location is being shared
How to Share Your Trips Progress?
When you want someone to be able to see your location and estimated arrival time while you’re en route to a particular destination:
- Open the Maps app, and start navigating to your destination
- Swipe up on the bar at the bottom of the screen (where your remaining travel time is shown), then select “Share trip progress” from the menu that appears
- Select the name of the person with whom you want to share your progress or select an app you want to use for sharing
If you want to stop sharing your progress before your trip is complete:
- Swipe up again on the bar at the bottom of the screen
- Select “Stop sharing” from the menu that appears
[Video Tutorial] How to Use Google Maps to Help Someone Find You? [Urdu/Hindi/English Subs]
Google Maps to Get Incognito Mode
This feature will enable users to block Google from associating the places they search for or navigate to, from being associated with their Google accounts.
How to Turn On Google Maps Incognito Mode?
Users will be able to activate the private mode in Maps by tapping on their profile picture in the search bar at the top and selecting the “Turn on Incognito mode” option from the ensuing menu screen, as seen below.
Google Maps Gets Speed Limit Warnings
The “speed limit” feature on Google Maps that has been confined to only some parts of the US, seems to have expanded to new areas, a media report said.
The feature has been spotted by users in New York City, Los Angeles Minnesota and other cities around the US, according to an IANS report.
Google Maps Gets Usable Voice Commands with Assistant Integration
Google announced its rollout of real Assistant integration into Google Maps, though it was spotted in testing late last year, and announced at I/O.
Enhanced Functionality & Usage
From asking to play music, read/reply to messages, sharing Maps’ ETA, and even add new stops on your way.
Tapping the mic icon in navigation mode brings up an Assistant’s “listening” animation. (Tapping the icon in the normal Maps view still brings up the old TTS
In its announcement for the new feature, Google reminds us that the Assistant works with SMS, WhatsApp, Messenger, Hangouts, Viber, Telegram, Android Messages, and other messaging apps.
Sources:
- Beebom
- Lifehacks
