Mountain View, California — Now if you are heading for an important event and figuring out how to avoid traffic jam and take the fastest route to reach in time. Global search engine titan Google over the weekend unleashed an update for its Google Maps for Android app that takes the guesswork out of things by factoring current traffic information into its directions with high-resolution map tiles, new public transportation options, and much more for devices running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS).
With the new and improved version released for Google Maps 6.5 for Android, which offers estimated travel times within Google Maps based on traffic conditions, including new public transportation options, such as the bus or subway, Harlan Hile, Google software engineer, wrote in a blog post.
Moving forward with the new version the initial thing worth noting is that maps are now quite a bit crisper and faster. While many users may not instantly discover this, but anyone with a high-pixel-density screen, such as the Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy S II, Droid Razr, among others would be able to see much more clearly defined roads and higher color contrast on their maps. Also, Google rearranged map labels and reduced their size to create a less cluttered map view overall.
Previous map style on the left, with the clearer, less cluttered version 6.5 style on the right. (Credit: Google)
So, if you are on your way to meet your friends across town for dinner, you will be able to see how long several routes might take with no traffic, as well as how long the expedition might be based on the traffic conditions right now. Additionally, you will also be able to choose from various route options, such as the recommended route, one with fewer transfers, or one that involves less walking. Transit directions and schedules are provided for 475 cities around the world.
“Whether you just need to reach somewhere as fast as possible, or you want to avoid the risk of a missed connection or you prefer not to tire your legs, you can get the transit directions that best suit you,” Hile wrote.
In fact, it all depends on your present location, as the shortest distance may sometimes take the longest time to travel depending on the time of day your journey begins, but if you live in a major metropolitan area, you should be able to get both a general time estimate and one considering current traffic conditions right below it. There is nothing to opt-in to or turn on: If it’s available where you live, it should appear automatically anytime you calculate directions.
{japopup type=”iframe” content=”images/stories/demo/2012/april/time in traffic transit-big.png” width=”1024″ height=”600″}
{/japopup} Click to enlarge…
The previous traffic feature that was abandoned from Google Maps last summer provided users with the worst-case traffic scenario based on historic traffic data–e.g. ‘up to 50 minutes in traffic’, according to a Google spokesperson informed Mashable. That feature was discarded because we wanted to embellish the freshness of the data. The feature that we are introducing on Google Maps today works differently and serves a different purpose. The new time-in-traffic feature provides users with the ability to check current traffic conditions and estimates the length of travel time based on constantly refreshed data.
However, this is very significant news for people who thoroughly plan out all of their trips. You can now plot out several courses and pick the one with the least amount of traffic, or weigh driving time against taking the train or riding your bike. According to Google, traffic information “is constantly being updated to provide you with the most accurate, up-to-the-minute estimate possible.”
Lastly, the latest update offers a couple of new elements that let you arrange in order a transit mode and route option when using public transit navigation. For instance, before you pull up directions, you can indicate that you prefer Bus as your transit mode and that you are looking for the route with the fewest transfers. Other route options include Best route or Less Walking.
Interestingly, Hile on the company blog provided some amazing statics on the Google Maps for Android navigation feature, which is still in beta, has already provided users with 50 billion kilometers of turn-by-turn directions, or “around similar amount of 130,000 trips to the moon, 334 trips to the sun, 10 trips to Neptune or 0.005 light years.”