There’s nothing worse than driving up to your destination only to discover that there isn’t a parking spot in sight — but thankfully, Google Maps will soon have you covered.
Android Police reports that the latest beta version of Maps V9.5 will incorporate a number of handy tools that will not only help you plan your route but also tell you whether you’re heading to an area with on-site parking.
What’s more, you can even find out whether it’s free or paid parking before you leave, which is sure to alleviate a lot of stress for us designated drivers.
Google has recently rolled out a number of handy features for parking, like reminding you where your car is parked and how much time is left on the meter. The on-site parking feature is just as easy to use. When you type in a destination and open the details page, it will now specify whether it’s a paid parking zone.
Previously, there was a parking meter in the app, which indicated whether parking availability was ‘Easy,’ ‘Medium,’ or ‘Limited.’ This has been updated to show drivers whether they can park at their destination or will have to go elsewhere to find a spot.
However, the on-site indicator has now replaced the difficulty marker, which is somewhat of a regression. This means that you could arrive and only learn that there is no parking when you’re driving around the area at a loss. Hopefully, this will be rectified ASAP.
Meanwhile, the tech giant is supposedly working on a feature that would alert the user to nearby parking, which should make the process of finding a spot a little easier. Android Police has identified a thread in the APK that searches garages and parking lots near the user’s destination and produces a list of options. Unfortunately, the string doesn’t seem to be compatible with multiple stops quite yet.
But that isn’t the only addition apparently. Google is allegedly working on informing users of traffic density before a journey, which would make time of arrival estimates even more accurate. The histogram would show how much traffic is expected on your chosen route that day.
All in all, it would appear that there are a lot of handy parking features in the pipeline to add to the changes Google has been making to Maps this year. The real-time location sharing option was introduced for both Android and iOS last month, which was a vital addition for those of us who are continuously running late.
If you want this on-site parking update now, simply enable “Unknown Sources,” then download and install the latest APK using this link.
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