Google Maps on Android Gets an Update with New Features

Google Maps is one of the best features of Android and thanks to the guys at Google, it just got even better. Google has issued an update to Google Maps through the Android Market and the update is quite significant.

New features include Voice Search, updated business listings, transit and walking directions, and some big improvements to Google Latitude. Voice Search is especially compelling considering the usefulness of it--say and be on your way. Voice Search will recognize English in American, Australian, and British accents so you should be covered. The updated business listings will now show store hours, prices, ratings, and reviews. The added transit and walking directions should prove plenty useful to those in big metropolitan cities where public transportation is plentiful.

Google Latitude also gets a significant update: not just bug fixes and performance enhancements, Google Latitude is getting a new experimental feature called 'Updates' that lets you communicate with your friends and post messages. Sounds like a location based, Twitter-esque service to us!

In all, this is a great update to an already powerful application. Is Google Maps on Android the most powerful Google Maps on a mobile device yet?

[google mobile blog]

Casey Chan