Google Maps will soon use augmented reality to show you exactly where to walk to reach your destination.
When you’re walking in a new, bustling city using Google Maps to find your way, you are bound to be unsure whether to cross the street here or there, or what to do when you reach a dead end.
With Google Maps’ new feature, you hold up your phone and the camera will open. On your screen will be the street scene you see in front of you, but with arrows on the image, too, showing you where to go.
It will even display the names and reviews of businesses that you pass along the way.
Once you know where to go, you can put your phone down and the feature closes itself while the 2D map reappears.
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The feature uses your phone’s camera, and not a GPS, to identify your surroundings so it works accurately even in the densest of city centres.
It will also identify which direction you are facing, something the app can struggle to do at times.
According to Mashable, the app recognises buildings, street layouts, plants and even street art to pinpoint where you are. It can recognise these markers because of years’-worth of Street View imagery and data collection.
For now, this new feature is limited to Google’s line of Pixel smartphones, but will be rolled out to iOS and Android smartphones in the near future.
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Feature image: Antonio Grosz.
