How to get the most out of Google Maps: seven features to exploit

Google Maps en one of those essential applications and web pages, of those we all went to for help from time to time.Surely the first thing we all did, when it came out in 2005, was to look for our house and smile when we saw it from above.so many have come to use it daily. Related

This application does not only serve to go from one place to another .It serves to find establishments, see the shape of buildings, calculate routes, choose the best transport, save our favorite sites or locate the Best store, restaurant or supermarket in the area.We explain some features.

Your chronology, a compilation of your travels around the world

It looks much better on the browser (see background of the following image, through the link google.es/maps/timeline) than within the application (side panel> Your chronology ). Your timeline is a great option to remember where we have been based on the day and time .

It is not always a perfect record, as can be seen from the jumps and straight lines of the mobile capture of a bicycle route; but if it would help us find that nice place ahead of which we spent a day and we forgot to write it down.

How to get the most out of Google Maps: seven features to exploit

Many of us don't like it that Google monitors our activity , that it follows us continuously and that it knows what we do at all times.If you want, you can deactivate the chronology by clicking on tools (wheel serrated from bottom right) and then on Pause location history .

Share your location at any time, or whenever you want

Having said the above, chronology is a very interesting tool, for example, as parental control in case our children leave home and go on a trip.In this sense, Share location is also another alternative that I recently implemented Google Maps.

For this, we have to use the mobile phone, although we can see its results later in the browser.By going to the side panel and clicking on Share location we will be asked how long we want to share it, and with this we can generate a personal link.

How to get the most out of Google Maps: seven features to exploit

The person or groups of people to whom we send the link can follow us in real time and on the map , with the danger of having an open link of this type.recommends always placing a time limit.A couple of situations in which this mechanism is very useful:

We are drivers of BlaBlaCar or a similar service and we visit our parents.On the way, we pick up an acquaintance in a nearby town that will be part of our path.Sending a link to our parents and this other person, they will be calmer and our acquaintance will arrive on time for the collection.

We have stayed with a group of friends in the center, but we will be late.To avoid that every time they change places they have to inform about their location, they share a link to us.

Both from the browser and from the mobile phone we can cancel previously generated links, and if we deactivate the GPS they will stop working.

Your sites, keep everything on hand

A long time ago, Google Maps had the possibility of saving linked sites to our accounts on the browser.Although it disappeared a few years ago, it has returned, and today we can store our favorite sites .side panel of the mobile, click on Your sites .

How to get the most out of Google Maps: seven features to exploit

Perhaps the most interesting thing is the Saved tab, where we will find three options: our favorite places , like the house of our friends or a place we like; the places we want to go to , a perfect list for leisure evenings; and featured sites .Having this type of information at hand can be very useful, especially within a navigation application.

Did you know that you could edit the map and add new sites?

Google Maps users can contribute to edit the map and improve it over time.For example, adding places that are not registered, as was the case with the Masriera Temple in Barcelona (a stylish workshop of a neoclassical temple) until just over a year ago, when the author of this post edited it.

A statue, a street without a name, a building that does not appear on the map, and even erroneous data that need to be corrected, such as schedules.Just click on a place on the map and select Add a missing site .By doing so, we will receive points .

Google Maps reviews and the Local Guides program

Surely you've ever used TripAdvisor reviews to see the quality of a hotel, which is usually rated by users of one to five stars.Similar applications are found in autonomous professionals, as well as in Google Maps, in shape of reviews .

The reviews are very useful in order to find the perfect place to go, especially if it has hundreds or thousands of votes.The more opinions, the more reliable the general rating will be.For example, a place with a single negative review provides little or null information.But we can provide it.

How to get the most out of Google Maps: seven features to exploit

Once we have visited an establishment, we can look for it on the map and click on Write review .We will be asked for a brief description (which we can leave blank) as well as photographs (always optional).is the star rating, although the rest add points for the Local Guides program.

This program allows you to be aware of the events of interest in the city in which you live thanks to the contributions of other people like you.In addition, every so often the points can be exchanged for premium services> with real economic value, like more storage in Google Drive.

It's very interesting how Local Guides can organize hangouts and sign up for them.It's perfect if you're looking to learn more about your city, make friends or find new places to visit.

What time is better to go to a store?

Do you have to visit somewhere and you don't know when is the best time of day to go? With Google Maps you can know when less people are expected, based on the historical ones.For example, imagine that we want to go to the Tuuu Libreria library, looking for it first in Google Maps:

How to get the most out of Google Maps: seven features to exploit

Below the schedule in the navigation view, or in the application overview, we find the rush hour tool, which tells us when there will be more people, for example, if we leave work at At 6:00 p.m., we better visit Tuuu Libreria on a Thursday than a Friday.

All these metrics are prepared thanks to keeping the chronology option mentioned above open, so that users deliver part of our privacy in order to improve service, and it is each one of us who has to determine the value of their intimacy.

Calculate Uber, mytaxi or Cabify routes from Google Maps

Cities are slowly but steadily giving rise to a new type of mobility called MaaS , or mobility as a service.Since Google Maps started as a map to make journeys, it is logical that includes certain options, such as knowing how much an Uber, Taxi or Cabify service costs.

Once a route has been chosen within the application, we have several options to access this data: go to the public transport platform, marked with a subway car; Well choose the business person who raises his hand by calling a taxi.The options we will see are similar:

How to get the most out of Google Maps: seven features to exploit

From this window we can select the type of service that best suits us by price, and open in the application of each of them to confirm the payment.

Due to its high functionality, Google Maps is an essential tool of our mobile phone.It not only helps us to go where we want to move using the best route at our reach (it informs us of accidents and retentions, for example); it becomes a personal agenda to work on and from which to extract all kinds of information.

Images | iStock/discostu55, Marcos Martinez

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