The Android version of Google’s flagship mapping application will soon adopt a new navigation bar and benefit from small-scale improvements to its overall appearance.
If Google’s announcements in terms of artificial intelligence have taken center stage since its major Google I/O conference held on May 14, the tech giant’s other flagship products have not been abandoned and continue to evolve at their own pace. Google Maps, the famous mapping application from the Mountain View firm, will also be entitled to new functions enriched by artificial intelligence, even if no release date or deadline has yet been announced for the arrival of these new features. But closer to us, the application is about to receive a minor graphic and ergonomic update, which should make it more pleasant and easier to use.
Google Maps: a simpler navigation bar
It is the specialized site 9to5Google, which closely follows the announcements and news of the eponymous company, which spotted this ergonomic change during the Google I/O conference and confirms its presence in the upcoming version 11.127 of Google Maps for Android. Until now, the Google Maps navigation bar, which appears at the bottom of the screen below the map, contained five tabs allowing you to navigate between the different sections of the application: Discover, Routes, Saved, Contribute and News. Starting with version 11.127, the navigation bar tabs will be reduced to three, Discover, You and Contribute, making everything less cluttered. The functions of the old Routes, Saved and News tabs will be combined in the new You tab. Additionally, the search bar that appeared at the top of the previous Saved screen disappears and notifications will now be flagged and accessible directly from the top right corner of the You tab.
Google Maps: a cleaner and more readable interface
Another change brought by version 11.127 of Google Maps for Android, and spotted once again by the 9to5Google site in a dedicated article, is a slight overhaul of the graphical interface, with the aim of leaving more room for the cartographic part of the application to make it more readable. With this in mind, most menus will no longer be displayed in full screen and will always show the map in the background. And in the same vein, the route search bar will be lighter, displaying only the departure and arrival fields and relegating the transport modes to the bottom of the screen, in a more compact menu that will cover less of the map, with new rounded corners.
No major upheaval or radical transformation for the Google Maps interface on Android therefore, but adjustments and gentle refinement which improve (a little) the readability of the application. These small new features are therefore expected in version 11.127 of Google Maps, which is starting to be deployed to some users, in particular owners of certain Samsung Galaxy smartphones, and should be available to everyone in the coming weeks.