Turn-by-Turn Navigation added to Google Mobile Maps

Google had decided to add a new navigation layer to its Mobile Maps and a demonstration of this was given to the press on the 27th of this month at the Google office in Mountain View. The demo was carried out on Verizon’s new Android 2.0 Motorola ‘Droid’ phone. Google said that currently the feature of turn-by-turn navigation for Mobile Maps will only work on Android 2.0 smartphones.

When asked whether other devices like G1, MyTouch3G and other non-Android 2.0 phones will be able to upgrade, Vic Gundotra who is the Vice President of Engineering at Google said that this decision lies entirely with the Android carriers. As per the reports, other smartphones should also be able to upgrade to get this new feature from Google.

The demonstration began with Gundotra providing some background information about Google Mobile Maps. He reported that ever since its launch four years ago, there has been billions of downloads and currently has about fifty million ‘active’ users on a global scale. Gundotra said this feature was added as this navigation layer was the most commonly requested one by most users.

This use of this feature will definitely gain momentum especially with the combination of other Google tools like search assets, voice interface and other Maps features. The fact that it comes free can only boost its use which could be quite a bad news for other GPS device manufacturers and subscription-navigation services.

A user can search manually or by voice in English on Google Navigation and this can be pretty fast on the Quick Search Box provided on the home screen of Android devices. Users can also carry out regular searches and then get turn-by-turn directions to the required destination through Navigation. This new offering from Google Navigation through Android can make both Maps and the device one very successful combination.

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