Google at its event in New Delhi today introduced new features to the Google Maps platforms. We all know how challenging it's to find an address in India- be it a food delivery guy or cab driver, they'll face difficulties while finding a destination address. Google is looking to solve these issues and introduced three new features to the platform today. The major one is the Plus Codes feature, an open sourced solution, which represents a simple and consistent addressing system that works across India and globally. The Plus Codes system is based on dividing the geographical surface of the Earth into tiny ‘tiled areas’, attributing a unique code to each of them. This code simply comprises a ‘6-character + City’ format that can be generated, shared and searched by anyone, which is all that’s needed is Google Maps on a smartphone.
The open source nature of Plus Codes means that applications that uses location services can easily incorporate it on their platforms for free. Every customer can use a Plus Code by simply entering it into the Search field on Google or Google Maps, mobile or desktop. After entering the Plus Code, users will be instantly shown the location.
Plus Codes can be used for a wide variety of reasons including communicating the venue of a temporary event, guiding emergency services to afflicted locations, and providing an identifiable location for complicated addresses.
Secondly, Google introduced a 'Add an Address' feature, which is a step aimed at facilitating accurate and easy searching on Maps. With this feature, any user can contribute to the Maps experience from the Google Maps app. Similar to adding businesses, users can submit new or missing addresses through this feature, and post verification by Google, the address will become searchable. And yes, users do get Local Guides points for each valid submission on the platform.
Alongside that Google rolled out Smart Address Search, which provides the best estimate of the location of an address, in cases when people aren't aware of the exact address.
Lastly, Google introduced voice navigation in six additional Indian languages- Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, and Malayalam, alongside Hindi. For the unknown, Google introduced voice navigation in Hindi three years ago, which was an instant hit.
Google also stated that it's looking to build new features and expand partnerships to make Google Maps experience better.
