“So if you’re about to leave home, work, school or anywhere else, you’ll know at a glance exactly what local traffic might be like. And because Android widgets are tappable, you can zoom in and out without opening the Maps app,” Google wrote in a blog post.
As far as availability is concerned, Google, in its blog post said that it will roll out this feature to Android users globally in the coming weeks.
Interestingly, this feature isn’t exactly new to Maps. Last year, the company rolled out a feature called ‘Know before you go’ on iOS and iPadOS that lets users check the latest traffic conditions along with a bunch of other details such as store opening times and restaurant reviews among other things. Google Maps’ Know Before You Go widget appears in a 1×1 square that shows a map of users’ current location along with the traffic layer.
It is worth noting that Google Maps’ already shows real-time traffic along with alternative routes as the traffic conditions change during the course of a journey. And so, giving a real-time about the traffic conditions that users are in before they begin their journey seems like the next-logical step. Yet, it took Google a significant amount of time to introduce this feature. More so, for introducing the feature on Android instead of iOS, wherein it was introduced almost a year ago.