Photo: Bogdan Popa/autoevolution/reddit user Vegetable_Book_8493
The immersive view feature in Google Maps is quietly rolling out to users, possibly as part of a very limited test.
Announced last year, the immersive view is an innovative Google Maps feature that allows users to explore popular locations across the world. While such capabilities are already powered by Street View, the immersive view combines multiple sources of data to generate a more realistic experience.
The immersive view, which was originally projected to launch in a few regions like New York, Tokyo, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, is apparently going live in other places as well.
A recent reddit post reveals that immersive view content, which combines 3D models, aerial views, and street-level imagery, is launching in London as well.
The current version appears to be just an early implementation of the immersive view. Essential features, such as weather data, don’t seem to be available for all locations.
Google originally said that users would be allowed to customize the immersive view with live traffic and weather information. The views would also be generated for different times of the day.
At this point, users can indeed see the available locations during both day and nighttime, but the traffic layer isn’t live. Most likely, Google will continue to improve the immersive view as the availability expands.
The new Google Maps feature is mostly available only on Android devices, though the availability is extremely limited right now. Google is most likely conducting initial testing before accelerating the rollout.
The immersive view was announced last year at the I/O developer event, and chances are Google is preparing the release announcement for this year’s venue. As such, the company could officially kick off the rollout in approximately two months.
This year, Google I/O takes place on May 10.
The current version of immersive view appears to be a very demanding Google Maps feature. Someone says on reddit that their device got really hot while using immersive view, and this is a sign the feature used most of the phone’s resources. Needless to say, this could lead to a massive battery drain, so it’ll be interesting to see how Google would eventually optimize resource usage.
At the same time, the immersive view appears to eat up quite a lot of data. In approximately 30 days, the feature used some 2 GB of data. This makes sense, though, as the immersive view brings together plenty of high-resolution data in Google Maps, including aerial views and street-level imagery.
The Mountain View-based search giant has so far remained tight-lipped on the availability of the immersive view in Google Maps. You can check if your device has already been updated with the immersive view by firing up Google Maps and exploring one of the aforementioned locations included in the initial rollout.
The immersive view, which was originally projected to launch in a few regions like New York, Tokyo, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, is apparently going live in other places as well.
A recent reddit post reveals that immersive view content, which combines 3D models, aerial views, and street-level imagery, is launching in London as well.
The current version appears to be just an early implementation of the immersive view. Essential features, such as weather data, don’t seem to be available for all locations.
Google originally said that users would be allowed to customize the immersive view with live traffic and weather information. The views would also be generated for different times of the day.
At this point, users can indeed see the available locations during both day and nighttime, but the traffic layer isn’t live. Most likely, Google will continue to improve the immersive view as the availability expands.
The new Google Maps feature is mostly available only on Android devices, though the availability is extremely limited right now. Google is most likely conducting initial testing before accelerating the rollout.
The immersive view was announced last year at the I/O developer event, and chances are Google is preparing the release announcement for this year’s venue. As such, the company could officially kick off the rollout in approximately two months.
This year, Google I/O takes place on May 10.
The current version of immersive view appears to be a very demanding Google Maps feature. Someone says on reddit that their device got really hot while using immersive view, and this is a sign the feature used most of the phone’s resources. Needless to say, this could lead to a massive battery drain, so it’ll be interesting to see how Google would eventually optimize resource usage.
At the same time, the immersive view appears to eat up quite a lot of data. In approximately 30 days, the feature used some 2 GB of data. This makes sense, though, as the immersive view brings together plenty of high-resolution data in Google Maps, including aerial views and street-level imagery.
The Mountain View-based search giant has so far remained tight-lipped on the availability of the immersive view in Google Maps. You can check if your device has already been updated with the immersive view by firing up Google Maps and exploring one of the aforementioned locations included in the initial rollout.
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