Google Maps Just Introduced a Stealthy New Feature
Google Maps Just Introduced a Stealthy New Feature. The only drawback: people might assume it’s more powerful than it actually is.
Google Maps is changing, and fast. But now, Google says it’s rolling out a stealthy new feature that might be a bigger deal than anything else in a long time.
First, the background. Last month, Google Maps unveiled that it was giving users the ability to post warnings about speed traps (along with hazards, slowdowns, and other highway issues) right on Google Maps itself.
The feature had long been available on Google-owned Waze, which is the second-most popular maps application in the Apple App Store. (Google Maps itself is number-1 as I write this.)
Letting users do this turns the community of people using Google Maps into the world’s most effective radar detector.
That explains why police absolutely hate it. But if you’ve ever found yourself toggling back and forth between Google Maps and Waze on long drives (I certainly have), the new feature is a Godsend.
That said, as big a deal as this was, on Friday, Google Maps announced it’s finally started to roll out something more consequential in the long run: Incognito Mode.
It’s not pue 100 percent privacy, but it’s a step in the right direction, and an adaptation of what Google says is one of the most popular features of its Chrome browser. When you turn on Incognito Mode in Google Maps, here’s what he company says will happen:
- It will stop saving your browser and search history (or sending notifications)
- It won’t update your location history or shared locations, and
- It will stop personalizing Maps using personal data
If there’s one drawback to Incognito Mode, I think it’s that people who haven’t read articles like this one are likely to assume it’s more powerful than it actually is. It doesn’t mean nobody can know where you’ve been traveling or what you’ve been searching for.
