Google Maps Update Will Help You Decide Where to Go, Find Latitude Friends in the Area, and Catch the Next Train There
Google Maps has just been bumped up to version 4.3 in the Android Market, bringing a few new features that are sure to help out in a pinch. The most minor — but still very useful — being the addition of a snapshot view of reviews and ratings when visiting the page for a nearby place such as a restaurant or bar. The new look borrows from Google’s Place Pages for desktop viewing, giving color-coded bars that quickly visualize what people are saying about a certain destination.
Now to get there, if you decide public transit is the way to go Google has added in upcoming schedules to the pages for transit stations. If transit info is available, you will be able to look up the next departing bus, train, or subway right from your phone.
The final addition for version 4.3 is a suggested friends list for Google Latitude. If you use the service you can now quickly look up friends pulled from your Google contacts who are also using Latitude, a feature that easily ups the social value of the location-based service by making it much easier to expand your social network. It still isn’t the explicit check-ins everyone craves, but it brings a more familiar social experience to a service that has seemed to struggle to find its place among the likes of FourSquare and Gowalla.
As always, the new update should come as a notification on your phone, but if not just find it in the Android Market.
[via Google Mobile Blog]