Google Maps Down? Service Status, Map, Problems History

Discover new experiences across the world or around the corner

• Explore your world

  With the redesigned Explore tab, find places to eat and things to do around you or when you travel

• See places you match with

  The Your Match score shows you how well a place matches your tastes and preferences

• Just for you

  See recommendations for new and trending places based on your interests

• Create lists

  Easily create lists of places you want to go, and add notes to the places you’ve saved. You can keep these lists private, share them with close friends, or share them publicly. You can also browse through lists created by publishers, Local Guides or Google

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Our Winner: Waze

When we drive for Uber or Lyft, Waze is the go-to GPS. Of all the mapping apps and GPS apps out there, no app is better at providing alternate routes to save time (and money).

It’s more useful based on the sheer amount of data it collects through its massive user base; which is not only extremely valuable, but presented in a visual and actionable manner.

Because of the social features, Waze offers better routes to avoid traffic and potholes (or have their time wasted because you get pulled over for a ticket).

There are so many other new features that come standard, all of which provide a huge upside to you and the rider.

However, Google Maps is still very reliable.

If you aren’t too concerned about avoiding traffic or shaving a minute or two off your drive time, Google Maps works perfectly fine.

Google Maps is our navigation app of choice when traveling long distances or overseas because of the offline maps feature.

We also like the public transit direction on Google Maps, but most people won’t need that feature.

Ability to Customize

When you want an experience catered especially for you, both navigation apps can provide a wide range of features that can be customized.

Regardless of which app you choose, you can opt to avoid freeways and tolls, connect with Spotify, and change your navigation voice.

However, Waze does go above and beyond in terms of customization.

In addition to its Spotify integration, the mapping app supports a large number of audio apps for listening to music, podcasts, audio books, and more.

Plus, while Google Maps only allows you to change between accents and languages, Waze allows you to have fun with your navigation by selecting celebrity and character voice prompts, too.

More practically, Waze also enables you to get the best routing and gas price information for your specific car type.

Just by inputting information about your vehicle, you’ll get Waze maps that take into account whether you’re eligible for the carpool lane or even commercial routes.

Waze users can even choose to avoid unpaved roads to save their tires.

Winner: Waze

When it comes to customization, Waze blows Google Maps out of the water. This one is a no-brainer – Waze.

Navigate the world around you

• Real time traffic updates

  Find the best route when driving, with real-time updates on traffic jams, accidents, road closures and speed traps. You can also keep fellow drivers in the know by reporting incidents yourself

• Hands-free help with the Google Assistant

  Your Google Assistant is now integrated into Google Maps so you can message, call, listen to music and get hands-free help while driving. Say “Hey Google” to get started

• Real-time updates for public transportation

  Get up-to-the-minute updates on busses and trains, like departure times and how crowded the bus is. You can also see where on the map your bus is so you know if you need to walk a little faster to the bus stop

• Explore new places confidently

  With Live View in Google Maps, see the way you need to go with arrows and directions placed right on top of your world. There’s less second guessing and missing turns

Google Maps – Disable 45 Perspective View – setTilt(0)

You can disable 45° perspective view by calling setTilt(0) on the Map object:

Tip: To enable 45° perspective view at a later point, call setTilt(45).

How to Choose One of Google Maps Suggested Routes

If you'd rather use one of the routes suggested by Google, follow these steps:

1. To choose one of the gray-colored alternate routes, select it.

   Google Maps changes the highlight color to blue to show that it's now the new preferred route, without removing the other possible routes.

2. Edit the newly highlighted route by dragging the path to a new location. When you make a change, the other routes disappear, and your driving directions change to reflect the new route.

This is a powerful tool for adjusting a Google Maps route, but it's easy to overdo it. If you find that you've changed your route too much or have paths going ways you didn't intend, use the back arrow in the browser to undo the damage or restart with a new Google Maps page.

When Google gathers suggested routes, it determines the fastest time to your destination, then uses machine learning to calculate which route you're least likely to experience a "hard-braking" moment, which is a leading indicator of a crash. Google automatically recommends routes with fewer hard-braking moments if the ETA is the same or minimally different from other routes.

Google Maps on Mobile Devices

Selecting an alternate route on mobile devices works the same way as it does on a computer, only instead of clicking the alternate route, you tap it to highlight it.

However, you can't click and drag on a route to edit it on a mobile device. If you need to add a destination, tap the menu button at the top of the screen and choose Add stop. Arranging the route order works by dragging stops up and down on the list.

Another minor difference between the mobile app and web version is that alternate routes only show the time to get there should you accept that route. You can't see the distance until you tap the route.

You can send a customized Google Maps route to your smartphone. This makes it easier to plan a trip because you can build it with the full tools available on your computer and then send it to your device when it’s time to put it to use.

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