Google has decided to rebuild ad relaunch their stand-alone MyMaps app. MyMaps allows users to create and share custom maps with others.
The app is meant to be a trip-planning and social-mapping tool, and is a cool way to save local favorites for repeated use.
Here is a list of the improvements and new features vs the previous version:
- A new UI
- New welome guide.
- Faster/better performance
- Directions integration
- Street View imagery
Although users can create custom maps in MyMaps, why use that when you can do the same thing in Google Maps? My statement should be taken with a grain of salt, as I’ve never used MyMaps, and I can’t seem to find it on the Apple app store to try out.
For Greg Sterling, the new app isn’t all that impressive, and is questioning the need for a separate app to create custom maps. In Google Maps, you get basically the same functionality, excluding the sharing capabilities, with saved places in Google Maps. Overall, it would seem that Google Maps is a much better and more useful app than MyMaps.
Any personal maps that you create online, or in mobile with MyMaps will be displayed under the Your Places tab on Google Maps. This seems to be the only good use for MyMaps.