When it comes to planning trips or in-car navigation, my go-to app has been Waze for what feels like decades now. However, more recently, I’ve been experimenting with Google Maps in my vehicle with CarPlay and Android Auto, walking around, and even when riding my bike.
I’ve always known Google’s other map app was very capable, especially when used in a vehicle, but I had no clue how many useful features I just wasn’t aware existed.
While this story focuses on using Google Maps with the Pixel 10 Pro, all of these features are also available on the iPhone and are accessed in nearly identical ways.
Live View with AR turns your camera into a virtual compass
If you’re bad with directions (like me), this feature is very useful
Early in my career as a technology reporter, I found myself traveling a lot, whether it was to product briefings in New York City, to Germany for Gamescom, or to San Francisco for one of several Apple events, back when the Cupertino, California-based tech giant held most of its events in the downtown core of the city. On almost every trip, I managed to get lost in some way because I have an absolutely awful sense of direction.
This is where Google Maps’ Live View would have come in handy. The augmented reality (AR) feature aims to help mitigate the disorientation some people encounter when they get out of an Uber, exit a subway station, or park their car in an area they aren’t familiar with and aren’t sure which direction to take to get where they’re headed.
Live View uses your phone’s camera to create augmented reality markers that are placed on top of the real world, including arrows, street labels, and, most importantly, clear direction cues that tell you precisely where you need to go. To make this feature work, Google Maps combines your camera view with Street View and GPS data to pinpoint your exact orientation.
To use Live View AR, all you need to do is start walking to a destination. Next, tap Directions > Walking mode > Live View. Google Maps should automatically recognize your surroundings when you hold your phone up, and if the feature is working right, you’ll see AR arrows pointing you in the right direction. Pointing your phone upwards pulls up Live View, and situating it back down again makes it go away. This can be a little jarring at first, but it’s pretty intuitive once you get the hang of it.
Immersive View lets me experience a location before I’m actually there
It’s great for planning trips and appointments
I’m a big planner. Whenever I have an appointment or an upcoming work trip, I like to figure out as much as possible ahead of time, right down to when I need to leave to get to where I’m going on time. This is where Google Maps’ Set Depart or Arrive Time and Set a Reminder to Leave features come in handy. But there’s also Immersive View, a feature that uses a combination of aerial imagery, AI rendering, and street-level photos to create a realistic-looking 3D model of a location that you can zoom into and explore.
Immersive View gives me a look at wherever I’m headed long before I actually get there, including the surrounding neighborhood and even nearby parking and restaurants. It features a contextual layer on top of the image that includes information like the weather or how busy the location is at different times of the day, which helps me plan accordingly. Google Maps’ Immersive View is sort of a more top-down take on Street View that gives you a zoomed-out perspective on where you’re headed.
The feature isn’t available for every major location or landmark yet, but you should be able to use it in most major cities. Immersive View is located in the Photos section of the Details panel within Google Maps (there should be a little prompt to launch the feature).
There are more crowdsourced location details than I realized
Waze isn’t the only navigation app where users are actively adding to the platform
When I think about crowdsourced map features, Waze’s comprehensive and popular reporting system instantly comes to mind, but Google Maps actually offers more user-powered features than I thought. For example, I’ve always known that the standard reviews and star ratings are featured in the map app, but I wasn’t aware that Google Maps can also surface other practical details about locations that come directly from people who frequent them.
For example, if I’m headed to a restaurant and I want to know how busy the location is during specific hours, I can check that out directly in Google Maps. Additionally, if I’m curious whether a local coffee shop has decent Wi-Fi or is kid-friendly, I can find that information in Google Maps, too. This information comes from both regular users and business owners.
There’s even an Updates tab that lets Google Maps users add short notes related to locations like road closures, menu changes, a new entrance, and more, though I’ve found that because most people don’t really know this feature exists, it doesn’t seem to be used very frequently (some businesses seem to use it pretty consistently, though). You can easily find this information by finding a location in Google Maps and then looking at the information that’s available about it, whether that’s reviews, updates, photos, or something else.
