Google Maps testing out overlay place markers in Street View
If you’re the type of person who wants to familiarize themselves with a place before actually going to that place, the Street View on Google Maps is one way to do so. You are able to not just see a map but the actual pictures from that area so you won’t get too lost when visiting it for the first time. They’re now testing out a new feature that will make it even easier to view that place as some users are seeing an overlay of place markers that give a sort of Augmented Reality look for the Street View.
9 to 5 Google shares that some users are seeing overlays on the Street View, similar to the pins that we see on the overhead Google Maps perspective. For example, restaurants and cafes have an orange icon which represents places to eat, stores have the blue icon, and some places have the generic location indicator. If you hover over the bubble, you’ll get a floating box with the name, description, rating, review count, and price indicator.
Once you tap the pins, it will open the sidebar on your Google Maps with the regular listing of the place. These overlays lets you browse through the Street View without having to go back to the full map just to get the details of the store or restaurant that you want to know the details about. You can just look at the various establishments and when you want to know more details, just hover or tap.
However, it doesn’t look like this overlay is widely rolling out both to users and to places just yet. Some of those users spotted it in major locations like New York and Boston but not in more local places. And even if you update your Google Maps to the latest version it doesn’t mean you’ll be part of the test group for this feature. Even the folks at 9 to 5 Google aren’t seeing this in their own apps.
Hopefully, this is something that Google will roll out more widely soon. We might not be able to widely travel for now because of the pandemic but it would still be useful for familiarizing ourselves with unvisited places or just going around streets virtually in the meantime.
