Live View in Google Maps is a great feature. It uses your phone’s camera and GPS to show AR overlays in real-time to tell you where to go. Today, Google is bringing some new features to Live View and it is introducing a few new features in Maps itself.

Earlier, you could summon Live View in Maps only if you select Walk as your transit mode. You couldn’t use Live View in Maps with transit mode set to Car, Bus, or Train. Google has now announced that you can invoke Live View when you are on a journey with multiple modes of travel that includes walking. In simpler terms, if your journey includes traveling through Car/Bus/Train and also walk, Google Maps will allow you to use Live View when you are walking towards the destination. Unfortunately, Live View still can’t be used when you are driving.

Google is also introducing a feature in Maps where the navigation app will show landmarks around you. For example, if you are standing beside the Empire State building, Google Maps will identify the building and show you an AR overlay over the building to notify you about it. This feature will work when you are navigating (walking) using Live View.

The feature where Google Maps will show you landmarks in Live View will be introduced in Amsterdam, Bangkok, Barcelona, Berlin, Budapest, Dubai, Florence, Istanbul, Kuala Lumpur, Kyoto, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Milan, Munich, New York, Osaka, Paris, Prague, Rome, San Francisco, Sydney, Tokyo, and Vienna in the coming days. Google will introduce this feature to more cities in the near future.

One minor issue with Live View was that AR objects in it used to hover above the actual destination, especially in hilly areas. Well, Google has now promised to fix this issue by using a combination of better topological graphs and machine learning. Last but not the least, you can now use Live View with Google Maps’ location sharing feature. It means that when a person shares a location, the other person can see exactly where he is in Live View along with AR overlay directions for you to navigate towards him.

All these features will be rolling out to Google Maps for Android and iOS devices soon. However, Google hasn’t provided an exact roll-out date yet.

We Want to Hear from You

Do you use Google Maps’ Live View feature? If yes, what features do you think it should offer? Do let us know in the comments below.