TL;DR
- Google Maps is working on new customization options for how vehicles are depicted.
- Existing options have consisted of a directional arrow, and three basic vehicles.
- After first testing on iOS, Maps beta on Android adds five new vehicle designs with new color options.
Not every change we’re looking forward to from mobile apps needs to reinvent the wheel. While it’s great when an app delivers some useful new functionality, we can also get just as excited about clever tweaks to an app’s design. Google Maps has been working on just such an upgrade to the way it displays your vehicle while helping you navigate, and it’s finally starting to become available on Android.
So far, when you’ve been using the navigation view in Google Maps, the icon used to represent your current position defaults to a blue arrow. If you tap on that icon, you can choose from some basic alternatives: a car, SUV, and pickup truck. But that’s been about the extent to which you’ve had any ability to customize things.
Last fall, we saw Google Maps on iOS begin offering a much more fleshed-out interface for customizing how your vehicle is represented while navigating. That includes not just a whole lot of new, much more detailed and real-looking vehicle models, but the ability to customize those in eight different colors.
While that was great for Apple users, we’ve been waiting ever since for the same options to arrive for Google Maps on Android. And while they’re not still not ready to make their grand public debut, 9to5Google has spotted that they’re finally available for testing, with the new icon options available in the latest Maps 25.06.x beta. All told, you’ll find five new vehicles available for customization. Just as we saw on iOS, the three old models remain as they were, and cannot take advantage of the new colors.
We know — this is an entirely inconsequential change truly doesn’t affect how we’ll use Maps. But when we do use it, maybe we’ll end up having just a little bit more fun, seeing our own vehicle (or a close enough approximation) depicted just the way we like it.
