By 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]
Ok, one last feature needed. Multi-point routing. Then it would own all apps now and in the future..
-Brad
Hope I’m not stupid enuff to walk into oncoming traffic still! :/
no cigar for 1.5
Failed to install. Moto Droid running 2.2 Kangerade.
installed nicely on my “terminated” eris
Getting an error indicating the file was not properly signed
Great addition works perfected on my garminfone
Let me guess: US only just like navigation … crippled for the rest of us?
@ Donkey3000: Google Nav works in the USA, UK, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland.
Navigation does not work in Canada (I should know, I’m in Canada). You need the “brut” version, not the regular app.
According to Google it does: http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2010/06/fun-on-autobahn-google-maps-navigation.html
Maybe you’re running an old version of Maps.
There is a new app in Android Market called Latitude Update, it lets you select how frequent you want to update your location in Google Latitude – even when Google’s own app is down or fails to update. You can also get your latest location history, see it on Google Map and more ..