Google’s updated design language – Material Design 2, which will become more evident with Android P – has been implemented in many apps such as Google News, Tasks, Play Games, Google Home etc. Now, one of the tech giant’s most popular apps – Google Maps has been refreshed with the new UI and some of the features showcased at Google I/O 2018.
The new interface is rolling out to select users and the first look was shared by a tipster named Daniel (via Android Police). The most evident changes are the overhauled cards with rounded corners and pill-shaped buttons instead of the conventional rectangular buttons with rounded corners. The search bar also gets rounded corners.
Another clearly visible change is the updated font, i.e. Product Sans which Google also uses in the overhauled Gmail interface on the web. A major update comes in form of the new Explore section, which apart from the new round icons to explore places by categories, gets a new carousel of images for choosing restaurants and other eateries based on their ambiance and target audience.
Under the carousel, there is a list of the most popular restaurants which is curated by Google. The new update for Google Maps also gets a list of events scheduled to take place near you, just like the earlier design, but with a subtle new addition for finding and sorting event based on time.
Each of the categories is further broken down into sub-categories to help you fine-tune your search based on principal categories like Food & Drink, Things to do, Shopping, and Services.
This is a positive change but we are yet to witness the slew of options showcased by the tech giant at Google I/O including the For You tab, which offers personalized suggestions, as well as the AR navigation feature. Moreover, this update has been spotted by only a handful of users and might take a while before it reaches every Google Maps user.
