Google Maps 6.0 for Android move into Malls and Airports

Google upgrades Maps version to 6.0 for Android, which lets Smartphone and Tablet users in the United States and Japan know where they are and what places they might want to check out while they are indoors.

Google Maps, the online location application, can help people navigate streets, landmarks, parks, and other outside locations all over the world, but Google's new updated maps application for Android will help you get around inside, too. "When you're inside an airport, shopping mall, or retail store, a common way to figure out where you are is to look for a freestanding map directory or ask an employee for help," Brian McClendon, Google's president of Engineering for Google Earth and Maps, wrote in a blog post. "Starting today, with the release of Google Maps 6.0 for Android, that directory is brought to the palm of your hands, helping you determine where you are, what floor you're on, and where to go indoors."

Google Maps 6.0 for Android will display detailed location when a user is looking at a map on the application and zooms on a building. Users’ approximate locations will be indicated with a blue dot icon within several meters. The newly added indoor maps don't quite offer the turn-by-turn navigation you've come to know and depend upon (that's outside-only for now), but the provided layouts should help usher you along to the nearest bathroom, clothing shop or elevator. There's no fancy equipment at use, either. All of your positioning information is culled from the same set of data (including GPS) used for "My Location," although here it's been optimized to detect movement along the z-axis. That’s to say, try a nifty feature called "Automatic Floor Detection" that'll keep track of your progress as you move about from escalator to escalator.

Indoor Maps was added to version 6.0 of the Google Maps application for Android, works with Android 2.2 or higher, and will presumably be added to additional mobile platforms in the future. Will Google Indoor Maps work on desktop Web browsers? Answer is that the new indoor maps feature of Google Maps is only available on Android mobile devices at this time. Microsoft, by the way, already has indoor mapping of major malls for Windows Phone and indoor mapping of airports and malls for the desktop.

Google has endeavoring to extend its indoor reach, opening up its mapping inventory with a self-service tool (currently in beta) that'll allow business owners to upload floor plans directly to Maps. Airports in Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco, and Tokyo are among the first to receive the indoor mapping treatment, joined by the Mall of America in Minnesota, certain locations of IKEA, Home Depot, Macy's, Bloomingdale's, and others. While Google worked with these businesses to ensure a certain level of precision, the search company also set up a do-it-yourself site for other business owners to upload floor plans, blueprints, and directories and line them up with satellite images.