Internet giant Google has now introduced a suite of new features for its Google Maps application, developed by members of its Sydney office.
Map Labs includes nine new features which are available to all users of Google Maps, but they are not automatically built in – users can choose not to use them.
The new features include the ability to zoom in on any one area, and browse new types of landmarks and services around a particular point.
Others include the ability to tilt maps 360 degrees in any direction. Google senior product manager Mickey Kataria told The Age the features are not far enough along to integrate them with the current Google Maps application.
“If we get good feedback [on a particular item], then maybe we will make it a permanent feature,” Kataria said in an interview. “And we will probably continue adding new ones at a regular rate.”
Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
