It lets you save common trips and then pull 'em up quickly for on-demand, hassle-free navigation whenever you need it. Pinned placesįind yourself meandering to the same places or making the same extended drives often? Save yourself some time by tapping into Maps' easily overlooked trip pinning system. JRĪnd one more tip to keep in mind: If you ever want to summon driving mode on your own, you can always activate Assistant (by saying 'Hey Google' or using whatever Assistant-summoning command you prefer) and then saying 'driving mode' - or you can give yourself a one-touch button for launching the mode by long-pressing on your home screen, selecting 'Widgets,' then scrolling down to the Maps section and touching and holding the 'Driving Mode' widget to place it anywhere on your home screen. On the auto-driving detection, the pop-up prompt is your only option beyond the default 'do nothing' behavior. Now, on the screen that comes up next, look at the lines labeled 'When connected to car's Bluetooth' and 'When driving is detected.' In the first case, you can ask Maps to fire up driving mode instantly as soon as a connection is made - or you can instruct it to pop up a prompt and ask you if you want that to happen every time such a connection is established. To find those options, tap your profile picture in the upper-right corner of the Maps Android app, then select 'Settings' followed by 'Navigation settings' and then 'Google Assistant settings' (whew!).

But with a couple quick tweaks, you can make it even more useful by telling it to start up on its own whenever you connect to your vehicle's Bluetooth system - or even just whenever it detects that you're driving. Google Maps and Assistant now work together to give you a driving mode that puts common mid-trip functions front and center and makes 'em as easy as can be to activate whilst on the road.īy default, that mode pops up whenever you actively start a new Maps navigation. JRĪnd just a reminder: If you'd rather not have this info pulled over from other Google services into the Maps app, you can disable the feature or restrict how far back it goes by turning off or limiting Web & App Activity in your Google privacy settings.

There, in that tucked-away spot no sane person would ever get around to finding, you'll see detailed info about any wanderings Google has compiled over the years. Want to look back on past adventures? You've got it: Just tap your profile picture in Maps' upper-right corner, then select 'Your Timeline' from the menu that comes up and look for the word 'Trips' on the bar at the top of the screen. Tap that, and any flights, car rentals, restaurant reservations, or other travel-related plans you've got will show up in an organized list - culled directly from the confirmations in your Gmail inbox as well as your Google Calendar. So here's the secret: Open up the Maps app on Android, tap the Saved tab at the bottom, and then scroll down and look for the circular Reservations button. You just practically need a map to find it. Fast-forward to today, and much of Trips' planning intelligence has quietly made its way into the main Maps app. After a few short years, the company killed off Trips and left those of us who'd come to rely on its smarts stranded, without any comparable replacement. Spectacular.īut then, well, Google Googled.

Trips tapped into all the info already in your inbox and automatically created impressively organized, easy-to-manage bundles of plans from your incoming itineraries and confirmations. Way back in 2016, Google came out with an awesomely clever app called Trips. It's accessible through your web browser or as an app for mobile devices.1. Google Maps is a free online map from Google. Not because it's totally useless, but because they've found something much easier: Google Maps. Today, I'd be surprised to find that same map in my parents' car. Wherever we found ourselves, we knew we'd be somewhere on our map, that we'd never be completely lost. More specifically, a very large map that my parents bought before I was even born: Rand McNally's Complete Road Atlas of the United States (and Surrounding Territories). Regardless of destination, I was sure we'd pack at least one thing: a map. Sometimes we'd drive to the beach, sometimes the mountains, and sometimes just to somewhere we'd never been before. When I was growing up, my parents and I would take a road trip at least once a year. Lesson 1: What is Google Maps? What is Google Maps?

Google mas 1