Augmented reality is jumping into our lives from every direction, and Google is the latest to give us direction with AR. With Google Maps AR, you are going to be able to navigate unfamiliar roads and streets with augmented overlays. This newly added feature is called Live View, and is being rolled out to thousands of iOS and Android devices right now.
Live View was originally announced back in 2018 during the Google I/O Conference, and was first publicly available on the Google Pixel. The closed beta began in February of 2019 and only latest a few short months. If you are familiar with map apps for your mobile device, you know what a pain they can be at times. Walking with the compass in the corner and often clunky directions can make for a very forgettable experience. With Live View, Google is going to be overlaying the real street with your directions. It is going to feel like you are using the camera app for your directions, and almost a video game feel with how futuristic the overlay is. Live View is something worth using in busy city streets.
Late To The Party?
Referred inside of Google as the Visual Positional System, the Live View uses GPS satellites to roughly estimate the direction of your phone. From there, simply lift your phone at the world and let the tech do the rest. The images will then be sent to the servers that have access to all of the Google Street View images. This will allow the computing software to locate where you are in real time and give you more accurate directions to get to your destination. By using AR overlay you are going to be able to see the directions as if they were floating in the air telling you what to do. This is going to make getting lost very hard, although some special individuals are going to still be able to.
This is not the only new feature added to the Google Maps app. Now you are going to have access to view your hotels, flights, and even dinners with the new Reservation tab. This is going to make knowing where you need to be much easier, as it should all be inside of one app on your phone. Of course Google is behind the curve though, as the Wallet app inside of iOS has been doing these functionalities for years. Google is bragging about the fact that this feature is also available offline, but to no surprise, Apple has been on top of that for years as well.
Privacy
Google is also going to keep track of your past destinations as a part of helping you know where you have visited in the past. Although most people could live without this feature, Google is going to keep it inside of the new app for the forceable future. This new function is called Timeline and will organize all of your stops into different categories. If you’re new to Googles services (which is unlikely), you know that they probably know a lot about you. This is only going to add to the data points they are going to use from you.
If you visit the Google Privacy Policy, it clearly states that anything that you search, interact with, or even look at while using their services is data they are going to be collecting. It doesn’t say if they are or aren’t using your data with third parties, but Google does say they are going to be collecting plenty of information. Although this new AR feature inside of their Maps app is exciting, there are plenty of plenty parts of this revamped app to be cautious with.
