If there's one thing that we love about Google Maps, it's that it is constantly looking to improve. One such apparent addition might not look like much, but it could be a real timesaver while out and about.
The change in question was first shared in a screenshot sent to Android Authority via Discord user winner00. The image features the Google Maps UI, but with the addition of a travel time on the Home chip that sits under the search bar. Not only that, it appears that the time on the chip is color-coded similarly to the navigation time, meaning it could take into account delays present on your journey.
At a glance, I can see how useful such a feature would be, as it would make it easier to plot out your plans at a glance, without needing to constantly set the navigation. It would help to save time, plus it's much less disruptive if you're, say, out with friends and just want to check how long to get home.
I would hope that, as part of this feature, we will be able to set what travel time appears with the Home chip. For instance, will I be able to set it to show the time when using public transport, or while walking? For many people, only seeing the estimated travel time for driving will just be more noise on the app that they won't notice.
Unfortunately, we don't know what version of Google Maps, or which device, the screenshot was taken from. So we can't definitively say that this will be a change coming soon. Android Authority reportedly didn't see the feature on its devices, while I didn't see it on either my iPhone 15 Pro Max or Galaxy Z Fold 5.
Google Maps has seen some other impressive changes recently
While we might not see our home journey estimates any time soon, Google Maps has seen plenty of updates in recent months.
One good example is the “Your recent places” section. This new addition reportedly aims to make it easier to find locations that you have visited or searched in the past, as well as offering new ways to organize them.
On top of that change, we also saw Google Maps get a small visual update on Android devices thanks to Android 16’s Material Expressive 3. While the actual maps don’t look all that different, it’s much more noticeable when you open up the carousel. Unlike with the other versions of the app, the Material 3 Expressive version has the key features, like Direction, Start and Ask(Gemini) pinned to the bottom of the menu.
Hopefully, we will see the new addition to the Home chip added to more devices soon, and it would be great to see it as a possible integration for Google Maps’ Glanceable Directions feature. Imagine how helpful being able to tell how long your journey home would be directly from your phone’s lock screen?
Let us know if this is the kind of feature you would want to see more of from Google Maps, as well as if you would like to see something similar from apps like Waze and Apple Maps.
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