Google is near to launch a small however helpful update to Google Maps which will provide you with live guidance and interactive real-time notifications throughout your journey.
The idea here is to provide you real-time updates while you’re on your transit journey. These updates will appear within the Google Maps app and, perhaps most importantly, on your android lock screen.
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To get started, you search for your transit directions in Google Maps as usual. So far, so good. What’s new here is that you’ll soon be able to tap a “start” button at the bottom the screen with the details regarding your transit journey and then get live updates as you walk or ride on your local buses and trains.
Our understanding is that Google Maps can even remind you to get off your bus or train after you get close to your stop. That’s undoubtedly helpful when you’re traveling somewhere new (or sleepy).
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The notifications on the lock screen also are new. One nifty feature here is that they’re interactive, thus you’ll be able to scroll right through your journey’s steps.
While Google Maps invariably did an honest job of supplying you with detailed transit directions (though it’s usually nowhere as good and helpful as CityMapper’s more detailed directions), the method generally concerned keeping track of your own progress on the route. With this update, transit notifications become a bit more like using Maps for walking, biking and driving.
We expect this update to go live shortly — and Google could already be testing it outside of its trusted tester community. If you’re already seeing it in Google Maps yourself, let us know in the comments.