The new version of Google Maps has had a complete overhaul and it is offered as a free download on your mobile devices.
Interface
The user interface shows the most notable changes. You no longer have the previous side panel and a map that occupies the entire screen, with a search bar placed innocuously, substitutes it. However, though the search bar looks innocuously placed, it has a depth of functionality. Through the search bar, you can go to particular addresses as well as a particular category of places, such as cinemas, restaurants and so on.
Card Design
The introduction of the card design keeps everything neat, which is similar to the design in Google Now as well as in search results. There are cards below the search bar and they are split into clear-cut sections. They can be stacked and also switched among various information sets. They also appear and disappear whenever necessary, so that it saves space. The system is also more sensitive to the context. It is faster and smarter and also offers greater flexibility. You can get more information with a click.
Street View
The street view has also been integrated into the search bar. The pegman is no longer present and instead, if you click anywhere on the map, you can get a preview in the search bar card, saving time used for dragging and then dropping the pegman to various parts of the screen. Today, there are many locations that offer Street view and also an option for viewing inside the premises, with a See Inside option, so that you can check out the décor and other details inside restaurants, apartments and other places, instead of just the front view.
Photographs
Users can generate photographs of their locations and premises and these are neatly placed in a gallery at the bottom of the map, through which you can scroll. When you click on a location on the map, the gallery will automatically show relevant photographs and you can even begin a photo tour.
Routing Overhauled
This is a very satisfying aspect of the new version, as you can click at any point on the map and it immediately offers a card in the search bar along with direction options. You can get the same facility even when you make a search for a particular location. You can also route recently searched locations, set the start point and so on. You can view all the results on the map with several route options, with the time and the distance shown on the route. If the distance is a short one, you can also see walking times, driving options and so on to make quick decisions. Search bar cards also enable you to select transport modes and get details for direction, with the entire journey times taking real time traffic into account.
Google Earth
The new version has done away with the satellite view and now integrates Google Earth. This was available for the previous version as well by means of a plug-in, but the new version is sheer magic. You can have a three dimensional view of buildings, but the map is mainly US focused now but it is soon going to be expanded to all other cities of the world as well. However, the zoom is not so good and if you zoom in too much, you will just see the earth spinning among the clouds. You can zoom out to see the stars, the sun, time zones, being lit up in areas having a major population and so on. Though this feature may not be particularly functional, it can keep things in perspective.
Despite this limited ability to zoom in, Google Earth offers great performance. However, another caveat is that there are certain requirements for the new version, as old systems having below 512 RAM and below 500 MB drive space or those with Directx9 GPU and 64 MB RAM will not be able to access the new version and will have to miss out.
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