Google Maps on iOS provides reside location sharing in iMessage, house display widget, darkish mode – TechCrunch

Google Maps announced today three characteristic updates to its iOS app. With reside location sharing within the iMessage app, a site visitors widget for the house display and darkish mode, Google Maps is positioning itself as a stronger competitor towards iOS’ native Apple Maps.

Live location sharing was already attainable in Google Maps — by tapping on the blue dot that reveals the place you’re, you possibly can share with choose mates your ETA to your vacation spot, and even how a lot battery life your telephone has. But the Google Maps iMessage widget makes it simpler to share your location with out navigating away out of your dialog. By default, Google Maps will share your location for one hour, however it’s attainable to increase to as much as three days — if you wish to cease sharing, faucet the “stop” button on the thumbnail.

Google Maps’ current iMessage widget permits customers to ship GPS coordinates of their location in iMessage — however if you happen to’re attempting to fulfill up with mates, this wouldn’t be as helpful as sharing a reside location. Apple Maps already has the same characteristic constructed into iMessage, so Google is taking a leaf out of Apple’s e-book to attempt to beat them on their very own app. For a very long time, Google Maps was extensively thought-about to be the superior navigation app, however in 2018, Apple fully rebuilt Maps from the ground up, making it extra aggressive. Plus, as iOS 15 rolls out, Apple Maps will add AR performance, higher public transit options, extra detailed maps and different enhancements.

Google Maps added Waze-like traffic and incident report features to its app in 2019, which made it extra interesting for driving commuters — the app says that one among its “most powerful features is the ability to see live traffic conditions in an area.” Now, customers with the most recent Google Maps app will be capable of add a site visitors widget to their house display, which may shortly share what site visitors is like of their space. The widget additionally permits customers to set frequent locations, like house, work or the fuel station, and navigate to these locations with only a faucet. Though the app already has dark mode on Android, this characteristic will even roll out to iOS customers within the coming weeks.

As Google Maps and Apple Maps compete to develop into the very best navigation app, an unlikely competitor is available in Snapchat, which has created a extra social expertise on its Snap Map. Last week, Snapchat added the My Places characteristic to the Snap Map, which helps customers discover new spots to go to based mostly on the exercise of different customers of their space. The ephemeral messaging app additionally introduced on the finish of July that in Q2 of 2021, the platform grew each income and every day lively customers on the highest charges it has achieved within the final 4 years. Still, as of final yr, Google Maps had over 1 billion worldwide customers.