Google Maps is rolling out several new features to iOS and Android users this week, focusing on improved navigation and travel planning tools.
A new prominent "Add stops" button is being added alongside the Start button with the idea of simplifying route planning: It displays restaurants, gas stations, and points of interest along the way. This week's update also introduces weather disruption reporting, allowing drivers to mark and avoid hazards such as unplowed roads, flooding, or low visibility conditions.
In addition, arrival assistance is getting enhanced. Google Maps will now highlight nearby parking lots and prompt users to save their parking location. The app can then provide walking directions to the final destination using AR Live View navigation.
A more substantial navigation update is scheduled for next month, launching in over 30 metropolitan areas. This enhancement will provide clearer visualization of lanes, crosswalks, and road signs, with a blue line indicating the correct lane position during turns and merges.
Looking further ahead, Google has announced plans to integrate its Gemini AI technology into Maps in the coming months. This feature will allow users to ask natural language questions about locations and receive curated recommendations based on data from over 250 million places worldwide. The AI implementation will also provide summarized reviews and detailed answers about specific venues.
Friday October 24, 2025 2:30 pm PDT by Juli Clover
In the fourth iOS 26.1 beta, Apple added a "Tinted" option that reduces the translucency of Liquid Glass for those who prefer a more opaque look. I saw some comments wondering whether the setting might preserve battery life, so I thought I'd do some testing.
Test Settings
I did four separate tests using the iPhone 17 Pro Max, and I kept the parameters as similar as possible. Here are the...
Monday October 27, 2025 7:55 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
The upcoming iOS 26.1 update includes a handful of new features and changes for iPhones, including a toggle for changing the appearance of the Liquid Glass design, "slide to stop" for alarms in the Clock app, and more.
Below, we outline key details about iOS 26.1.
Release Date
Given that Apple has yet to seed an iOS 26.1 Release Candidate, which is typically the final beta version, the...
Apple Maps could feature integrated ads as soon as next year, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports.
In his latest "Power On" newsletter, Gurman said that Apple's plan to bring more ads to iOS is moving "gaining traction," with the Maps app being next in line. The project will apparently give restaurants and other businesses the option to pay to have their details featured more prominently in...
Monday October 27, 2025 4:51 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Apple is designing an updated version of the Apple TV 4K, and rumors suggest that it could come out sometime in the next couple of months. We're not expecting a major overhaul with design changes, but even a simple chip upgrade will bring major improvements to Apple's set-top box.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
We've rounded up all the latest Apple TV rumors.
...
Wednesday October 22, 2025 6:15 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
The upcoming iOS 26.1 update includes a handful of new features and changes for iPhones, including a toggle for changing the appearance of the Liquid Glass design, "slide to stop" for alarms in the Clock app, and more.
iOS 26.1 is currently in beta testing. The update will likely be released in the first half of November, and it is compatible with the iPhone 11 series and newer, but some...
Monday October 27, 2025 9:15 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple this month refreshed the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with its new M5 chip, and higher-end 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips are expected to follow in early 2026. However, these machines will represent the final update to the current design, with Apple reportedly developing a completely new version of the MacBook Pro packed with next-generation hardware...
Apple's upcoming iPhone 18 could feature 50% more memory than its predecessor, according to Korea's The Bell.
With its latest iPhone lineup, the iPhone Air, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max feature 12GB of memory. This is a significant increase of 4GB more their predecessors, largely driven by the demands of on-device artificial intelligence processing.
The iPhone 17 is the only new...
The first preview release of the Swift SDK for Android was published this week, allowing developers to build Android apps in Swift with official tooling and making it easier to share code across iOS and Android.
The SDK enables Android apps to be built in Swift using officially supported tooling rather than community workarounds. In June, it was announced that Apple's Swift programming...
Monday October 27, 2025 7:41 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
You will "soon" be able to add a digital version of your U.S. passport to your iPhone, according to Jennifer Bailey, vice president of Apple Pay and Apple Wallet.
Bailey reiterated that the feature is coming soon during her keynote at the Money20/20 USA conference in Las Vegas on Sunday.
On its iOS 26 page, Apple says the delayed feature will be "coming later this year."
Apple's...
The first company that puts out a maps app that allows you to select avoids like "no unprotected left turns across giant roads at a stopsign with no light", and "no turning left out of a parking lot across giant roads" (which really is a subset of the first), will win my vote. I swear to god Apple Maps is constantly thinking that holding up an entire parking lot full of traffic so that *I* can turn left is somehow a good idea.
Even though these are good features, Google Maps is nothing more than my fail safe in case I can't find something on Apple Maps.
Which means Google Maps is the better product, if that's the one you go to when you need things to work correctly? Apple Maps has definitely gotten better, but this isn't really a good argument for it.
Here's a feature suggestion: Don't sell my location data to the entire planet.
In order to keep a minimum of privacy I cannot recommend Google Maps at all. Your location data is pretty expensive compared to your what's app conversations...
The data economy is growing fast with AI.
Apps don't need to be Maps apps to be collecting and selling your location. All apps that display ads are collecting it through their ad servers. At least with a Maps app you're getting some value for yourself as well, instead of the company getting all the value.
Apple is too restrictive with app capabilities in CarPlay. If Google Maps can’t include additional features in CarPlay, it feels almost pointless. Many people now connect their phones to their cars instead of using them as standalone navigation devices, especially with the prevalence of CarPlay.
GM isn’t 100% for me. Local driving it doesn’t matter, but in unfamiliar territory I always cross check the navigation against a different source. YMMV.
Google Maps once told me to use any lane of the 6-lanes-each-way freeway I was currently on, to make an immediate U-turn.
Apple Maps was rushed out the door because (IIRC) Google wanted access to creepy amounts of information about people using the Maps app, when the contract came up for renegotiation. Since then, it has improved by several orders of magnitude. I think a lot of the people claiming that Apple Maps is bad and Google Maps is great... haven't really tried using Apple Maps in a very long time.
