Explore neighborhoods with the new “Community” feed from Google Maps

Several new features are appearing in the Google Maps app that could help you find things to do and find your way – much easier.

The biggest update is a new community feed in the Explore tab of the app on Android and iOS. This new section is akin to a social media feed, which features news and updates on where you live, previous searches on Maps, and your location history. It includes new reviews, recently added photos of places you visited or searched nearby events and recommendations based on what’s popular with other local users. You can also “follow” businesses to get updates and new user ratings in your feed.

If you are traveling (safely)or plan to search for activities in another part of town, you can tap the location name at the top of the feed to edit it.

Have fun away from home is always difficult given COVID-19 escalation cases lately, but the Community section of Google Maps can also keep you up to date with important information related to COVID-19, such as changed schedules or new capacity restrictions Just press “See local COVID-19 updates” at the top of the stream.

The Community tab is deployed for all Android and iOS userssnow. This is a server side update, so there is no need to install anything, but we cannot predict when exactly the stream will appear in the app. Once available, open the app, tap “To explore,” then swipe up to expand the community feed.

Along with the community feed, Google is also testing two smaller updates that should make it easier to navigate:

• Building numbers in the map view: Google Maps now shows a building number directly on the map, which should help when you’ve apparently arrived at your destination, but can’t tell which building or house is the correct one. You’ll have to zoom in closely for them to appear, so it’s probably best to use it when you’re not driving. The feature is only available in a few cities at launch, but will expand to more places over time.
• More precise driving services: Google Maps already gives you an estimate of carpooling rates and arrival times, but those numbers will soon be more accurate, at least once the feature is rolled out in the stable version of the app.

You can try out both of these features early on. activate the Google Maps beta program on Android. They might not appear immediately, but you should see them if you’ve signed up for the beta and kept your app up to date.

[Android Police]