Google Maps Navigation for Android adds real-time traffic re-routing

Via Engadget:  
Google Maps Navigation becomes more of a threat to the traditional in-car GPS business seemingly on a daily basis, and they're taking another stab at it today with the addition of traffic re-routing capability in the Android app (which, while technically still in beta, is pretty darn solid) in both North America and Europe. Of course, Maps has had access to traffic information for a long time, so this is a natural progression -- and just as Google uses an interesting combination of sources (including phones) to cull that data, it's employing some smart schemes for re-routing that take into account both current and historical information about your route. The update's available today.
Well, as long as my phones battery dies after 4 hours of GPS (well yes, I could buy a car charger), I wouldn't really call them a threat to the in-car GPS system. Especially because Google Maps still needs an active net connetction, and that can cost you bigtime while traveling abroad.

12 comments:

  1. you are right, it's not going to be very helpful

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  2. google maps might be a threat to GPS systems like TomTom if you are travelling in your homeland (where you can access internet with your phone with no extra costs). When you're abroad, you don't have access to the internet and Google maps is useless..

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  3. that's good... now to move my car here so i can use it!

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  4. this is great for my commute in the "morning"

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  5. That's actually pretty funny. I do find phone GPS quite useful when out and about in the city though, that stuff rocks.

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  6. Whatever happened to good 'ol street directories, eh?

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  7. Google Maps works really well with my android phone. It is always very accurate, even when walking. Great post by the way, will follow :)

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  8. GPS Navigation has to improve a lot

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  9. Gps nav has improved, but batteries are still behind. Why dont cell phones have better batteries with all the technology we have?

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