Google Maps celebrates its 15th birthday with new logo and features

Google Maps is celebrating its 15 years in existence by unveiling a new look and new features.

The new look app comes with five easy-to-access tabs: Explore, Commute, Saved, Contribute and Updates.

• Explore: Looking for a place nearby to grab lunch, enjoy live music or play arcade games? In the Explore tab, you’ll find information, ratings, reviews and more for about 200 million places around the world, including local restaurants, nearby attractions and city landmarks. 
• Commute: Whether you’re traveling by car or public transit, the Commute tab is there to make sure you’re on the most efficient route. Set up your daily commute to get real-time traffic updates, travel times and suggestions for alternative routes. 
• Saved: People have saved more than 6.5 billion places on Google Maps—from the new bakery across town to the famous restaurant on your upcoming vacation. Now you can view all of these spots in one convenient place, as well as find and organize plans for an upcoming trip and share recommendations based on places you’ve been. 
• Contribute: Hundreds of millions of people each year contribute information that helps keep Google Maps up to date. With the new Contribute tab, you can easily share local knowledge, such as details about roads and addresses, missing places, business reviews and photos. Each contribution goes a long way in helping others learn about new places and decide what to do. 
• Updates: The new Updates tab provides you with a feed of trending, must-see spots from local experts and publishers. In addition to discovering, saving and sharing recommendations with your network, you can also directly chat with businesses to get questions answered.

According to Dane Glasgow, VP of Product, Google Maps, “the new Google Maps icon reflects the evolution we’ve made mapping the world. It’s based on a key part of Google Maps since the very beginning—the pin— and represents the shift we’ve made from getting you to your destination to also helping you discover new places and experiences.”

Google says that it will also be rolling out new updates in the coming weeks:

• Live View: Launched last year, Live View helps you quickly decide which way to go when you start a walking route with Google Maps. By combining Street View’s real-world imagery, machine learning and smartphone sensors, Live View in Google Maps shows you your surroundings with the directions overlaid in augmented reality. Live View will see an expansion and Google will be testing new capabilities, starting with better assistance whenever you’re searching for a place. You’ll be able to quickly see how far away and in which direction a place is.
• Crowdedness: Google will be adding new insights about routes from past riders, so you’ll be able to see important details, such as: 
  • Temperature: For a more comfortable ride, check in advance if the temperature is considered by past riders as on the colder or warmer side. 
  • Accessibility: If you have special needs or require additional support, you can identify public transit lines with staffed assistance, accessible entrance and seating, accessible stop-button or hi-visible LED. 
  • Women’s Section: In regions where transit systems have designated women’s sections or carriages, we’ll help surface this information along with whether other passengers abide by it. 
  • Security Onboard: Feel safer knowing if security monitoring is on board—whether that’s with a security guard present, installed security cameras or an available helpline.
  • Number of carriages available: In Japan only, you can pick a route based on the number of carriages so that it increases your chances of getting a seat.

Google has started rolling out the new app globally.