The Google+ team introduced a Local tab to the ever-growing social service this morning, bringing you search results for all of your soon-to-be-favorite hangouts. Using Zagat scores, you can discover new places around you or find the places that your friends have recently visited and reviewed.

Android integration is supposed to be rolling out as well, however, we are not seeing it in our app just yet. The browser G+ Local page is live though, and can be visited here.

Another solid addition to Google+, I’d say. Now, to find a way to get friends to switch over to it.

Via:  Google Blog

After the last Google Maps update rolled out, we received an email here or there from users who had noticed that when using turn-by-turn navigation, that the voice was no longer saying street names. Instead, the voice was simply saying “Turn right” or “Turn left.” You can imagine how frustrating this would be for daily users who are actually looking at the road when driving, rather than at their navigation device.

We were unable to replicate the issue on any of our devices (One X or Galaxy Nexus) and have had no problems with navigation. However, after cruising through the comments in Play Store listing of the app, it’s clear that many are.

So we thought we would bring it up to ask if your Google Maps is having voice navigation issues, and if so, have you been able to fix it?

Cheers Scott!

Google Maps has received a minor update today in the Play Store, which includes added zoom buttons and a scale bar right onto the map itself. Also included in the update is the addition of elevation data to the “Measure” laboratory. I guess if pinch-to-zoom was frustrating you, then this update is perfect.

Play Link

Cheers everyone who sent this in!

When it comes to April Fools’ activities, no one does it up like Google. To get an early start on the festivities, they released their first product in Google Maps 8-bit. Yeah, that 8-bit. Just watch the video and laugh at your years with the original NES. Oh, and this video makes it sound like we may see an Android version in the next couple of days. Cannot wait. 

A couple of weeks ago, Google updated Google Maps Navigation screens with bigger buttons and to be more car-friendly. Today, they updated the actual starting Navigation menu with a new layout to help complete the experience. You now have 4 big buttons to choose from when entering the Navigation screen, along with a list of recent destinations. If you swipe to the left, you get a list of locations that you have starred in Google Places for quick access. If you swipe to the right, you get a list of your contacts that have addresses attached. Seems minor, but man does this make sense. 

A new Google Maps update is available for you in the Google Play store (how weird is it still to say that?). The update is minor and only includes some visual tweaks to the Navigation side of things. We have photographic evidence to prove that there was indeed a change too, as it took us a minute to figure it out. The menu button is now more than just the 3-dotted button that came with ICS. It has been built into the UI of the app, something that should stand out to users and be much more easy to press while driving. While in the menu, you will also find bigger buttons that are easier to read than the listed version that we have been stuck with for months.  

Google Maps received an update last week that was supposed to improve battery life while using Latitude, only that’s not all that came with it. If you use the location and check-in service in Maps, you will notice that after a check-in, you are awarded points and a fancy animated leaderboard appears. From there, you can tap to see a full leaderboard that shows an all-time list, current week, and even last week. This new social check-in addition pulls from your Google+ Circles to let you compete with your friends or the world for that matter, similarly to what Foursquare offers.

Google has yet to officially mention that the service exists and has simply posted a brief 1 sentence section in their Maps support section. I’m sure we’ll see more before long.

My question is, does anyone actually use Latitude? I have always been intrigued by the idea of it, however, it’s difficult to find anyone that even knows what it is or how to use it.

Via:  Engadget, Google Support

Three of our favorite and most used apps all received updates today. Adobe’s Flash Player 11 has been updated with a few security enhancments. Sorry, no Chrome Beta still. The Google Maps application has been updated for improved battery performance on Latitude and Location History. And finally, Evernote is receiving lots of bug fixes, an improved interface for Explore Evernote and a fix for the copy/paste issue in the note editor.

Adobe Flash | Google Maps | Evernote

Cheers Chris!