The user experience of a platform can experience small and large changes, as in the case of Google Maps which, having implemented a small restyling, has undertaken future improvements for the function that helps to generate the most ecologically efficient route.
Listen to this article
Google Maps, to date the queen platform used by users in planning their travels and to orient themselves in areas they do not know (well), has released a small graphic variation that, perhaps, not everyone will like. Meanwhile, the development of the function to indicate the most efficient and least polluting routes is proceeding, which could soon also take into account the type of vehicle being driven.
Last year, Google began to change the way it generated a route from point A to point B, in order to favor, between two journeys of similar duration, the one that required less fuel and which, therefore, it was more ecologically efficient and less polluting. Since then, however, Mountain View seems to have become aware of some details: to date, the car fleet is very varied and, although gasoline thermodynamic ones are still the most widespread, they are increasingly surrounded by other types of vehicles, including electric, hybrid or diesel cars. As a result of this, it is unlikely that there is a more efficient route in its entirety, for each type of car.
In the beta release 11.39 of Google Maps, the leakers of 9to5google, through a reverse engineering operation conducted with the JEB Decompiler toolk, have discovered traces of a function that will allow to indicate the type of vehicle (then variable below, through the settings) you are driving, with options to choose from diesel, electric, hybrid, so that the platform can then take them into account when developing a route that can “save more fuel or energy”. At the moment, it is not clear if and to what extent Google will actually introduce this feature which, among other things, could also change in its way of functioning at the time of the final release.
Inside the 11.38.2 release, however, the editors of AndroidPolice have discovered a small restyling in the process of gradual implementation, which involves the “Pin” used by a contact who shares his position on the map with us: previously, the his profile image, circular, was inserted in a white Pin, which ended up putting it in relief, in order to make it stand out more on denser maps or in the same color as the contact image (e.g. when the map switched to night colors ).
With the new layout, “slimmer and cleaner”, the white outline in the Pin that surrounds the image of the contact that shares its position disappears, even if the white tip remains at the bottom.