New Google Maps for Android moves in on Yelp, Foursquare

The new Google Maps for Android includes features big and small that combine geolocation with more real-world information than just longitude and latitude. Restaurant reviews from Zagat target Yelp, and are available directly from within Maps when you look up a restaurant. You now can add your own score and comments from within Maps.Explore sounds similar to one available in Foursquare. This new feature provides an entirely touch-based way to explore a location without typing or speaking. It focuses on five categories: Eat, Shop, Drink, Sleep, and Play, allowing people to learn more about urban locations in relationship to their restaurants, shopping, hotels, bars, and activities.One of those less-important new features gets to a key conceit of Google Maps, explained Daniel Graf, the director of Google Maps. 


 
  "We depend on users telling us that something has changed," he said, and to that end, you can now send feedback on Maps errors to Google by shaking the phone. That will open the Feedback screen, from which you can add comments on the problem, including bad photos, errors in public transit schedules, and inaccuracies in a business' open hours. 

What Google has built with Maps is good, he said, but it's made more useful when its users contribute to make it "even better," he added.While the more realistic Map view made big news at Google I/O this year, the mobile version exposes search results at the bottom of the screen in a format not unlike the Google Now cards. Swiping through the cards will show you other nearby results. 

Traffic information in Maps now includes real-time traffic incident details with an notification to re-route you with one tap. While that sounds like Waze, the social maps app that Google recently purchased, Graf said that it was too soon to include features from Waze.