Since it’s summer, it looks like it’s time to update Google Maps and introduce the well-known navigation app with new features. One of them, and undoubtedly the most striking, photorealistic aerial view of iconic sitesLike the Empire State Building in New York or Big Ben in London. A function in the purest Flyover style that has long been available in Apple Maps.

Also, those in Mountain View announced news for cycliststhey will now have a better view of their route and possible obstacles, and will have the functionality to receive notifications when someone they know arrives or leaves a certain place.

Wow, look how beautiful Big Ben is

first function photorealistic reproduction of places. In this way, users will be able to see 3D and 360º recreations of “nearly a hundred of the most emblematic places in cities such as Barcelona, ​​London, New York, San Francisco and Tokyo” directly from Google Maps. We can see it working in the GIF in these lines.

According to Google, one step ahead immersive view shotAiming to provide a viewing experience by combining artificial intelligence with Street View, satellite images and billions of aerial images, . Apple Maps already has something similar to Flyover, with the advantage of focusing on entire cities, not just landmarks.

The second innovation is designed for cyclists. We’ll be able to find out soon when we start a bike route there will be a lot of traffic, stairs, or steeper climbs than necessary. It will also be possible to get a “very detailed breakdown” of the route that will allow us to know whether we are going through the bike lanes, the main road or the secondary road. In the image above, the route has more bike lanes, fewer turns, etc. We can see an example that Google Maps does not specify.

Finally, the third innovation concerns real-time location sharing. Although we are used to doing this via WhatsApp, Google Maps also allows us to share the location with anyone we want in real time. Well, from now on, we can too configure notifications Thus, the application notifies us when the person who shared their location with us arrives or leaves a certain place.

Photorealistic aerial views and notifications are now available on Google Maps for iOS and Android, while bike route information will be published in “hundreds of cities where cycling directions are available” in the coming weeks.

More info | Google