The next time you are lost in the bustling Ambience Mall or the Select City Walk, Google can come to your immediate rescue. The technology giant has launched indoor maps in India to help users navigate through and locate different venues inside malls and museums with just some easy swipes.
Google announced in a blog post that with the new feature you can access the complete floor plans and indoor walking directions inside those high end global stores and super markets. The indoor maps appear as soon as you zoom in to a venue and disappear when zoomed out.
Previously available only for outdoor destinations, the My Location feature will now help you navigate your way indoors by locating your exact position through the blue-dot icon. As you move up or down multiple floors, the map will automatically update to show which floor you are currently on.
Right now, the map can be accessed in 75 select locations across 22 Indian cities including Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Pune, Hyderabad and Kolkata. It is also available to the iOS and android users of some smaller cities like Coimbatore, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Kochi, Goa, Dehradun, Chandigarh and Bhopal among others.
The service, already available in US, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong and the Netherlands, is used globally for browsing through airports, shopping malls, retail stores, and transit stations. Indian businesses and companies can get themselves listed and include their location's floor plan on Indoor Google Maps at maps.google.com/floorplans.
Google is not the first to experiment with indoor maps. Earlier Nokia had also introduced something similar through the “HERE” venue feature. The option provided details on particular stores, product offers, floor levels, elevators as well as restrooms inside a mall.
However, Google has the advantage of introducing the brand new feature to some of the famous museums and art galleries of India like the National Gallery of Modern Art in Delhi, the Salar Jung Museum in Hyderabad and the Hyderabad International Convention Center, besides the teeming shopping malls. Download the Google Maps, pick up your shopping bags and go shopping fanatic this weekend.
