Location based services is a huge growth area for mobile phones, with many services offering content based on your current position, allowing you to find out more about your environment, where to find local points of interest and how to access locally based facilities, such as nearby cashpoints, hospitals, restaurants, and so on.
Google Maps is one of the more popular applications that allows access to this type of content, and Google Maps for Android has just been updated, with some rather nifty new features. First up is the new Places feature, which serves to give you up to the minute reviews of local places directly on the main search results page. Simply search for a local place to eat, and the search page will aggregate feedback for on the returned results, detailing things such as food quality, service, atmosphere, or whatever else is commonly fed back for that particular establishment. Tapping on one of the feedback bars will open a fresh page allowing you to read actual user review snippets, helping you to choose a decent place to eat.
Another update included in the new release of Google Maps is on the public transport information page, which now ties in to show updated schedules for departures, estimated running times and so on, for local buses, tube services and trains, wherever this content is made publicly available.
Lastly, there is an update to the Google Latitude service, which makes it even easier to let friends know how to find you from your current location, and how to find friends who have set their visibility to public. Adding and removing friends from your list is as simple as hitting the + or x symbol next to their name, so you can easily control who you want to find, and who you want to find you.
The new version of Google Maps is available now in the Android Market, and will work on any Android device running Android OS 1.6 or above, so simply open the Android Market on your device, or aim your barcode scanner at the barcode below.
