Google Maps turns 15 years old. To celebrate, Google is rolling out a new icon for the service along with a slightly redesigned app and a couple of new features.
The biggest changes that you can notice is icon itself. The Maps icon is now a Pin, instead of a map.
According to Google, everything you need inside of Google Maps are now within five different tabs — Explore, Commute, Saved, Contribute, and Updates. The new tab here is Updates and Google describes it with, “The Updates provides you with a feed of trending, must-see spots from local experts and publishers, like The Infatuation. In addition to discovering, saving and sharing recommendations with your network, you can also directly chat with businesses to get questions answered.”
The other update is coming to Google’s augmented-reality Live View feature, which is getting a more lightweight mode that will simply show the location of your destination without launching into the full-fledged 3D turn-by-turn navigation mode that’s currently available.
While the updated Google Maps will begin rolling out worldwide today, the new public transit information and Live View features are expected to arrive next month.
