Android Thoughts: Google Maps Hits Version 4.6: Updated Reviews, Search Filtering, And Real-Time Stalking

"Lately, we've been working on giving you even better ways to find nearby places with Google Maps for Android, such as the Places icon and rich Place pages. Today, we are launching Google Maps 4.6 with a new design for Place page reviews, more options to filter search results, and a Google Latitude real-time updating option."

This latest update to Google Maps brings some very nice features to the Places portion of the program. Search results can now be filtered down in several ways. You can choose to restrict the distance away from your location, rating level, or even if the joint is open now. All very nice features when you are out and about in strange lands looking for a bite to eat.

The feature I am most excited about it the experimental real-time updating option in Latitude. This feature allows you to select one of your Latitude friends and enable "real-time" location poling for the next 15, 30, or 60 minutes. It turns their map marker orange and gives you darn near instant location updates. Well, much faster than the 5-20 minute updates you normally get. This is a great feature if you were actually trying to meet up with said person. Unfortunately it requires both users to have Google Maps 4.6 and Android 2.2+ so you may be limited on who you can use it with at the moment. Still a very nice feature.