Google developers have invested significant efforts in improving the navigation experience in Maps throughout 2023, as we witnessed with the journey behind creating Immersive View. Efforts like this make Maps one of our favorite navigation apps on Android, but along the way, it also announced features like glanceable directions, which we haven’t seen on our devices yet. That is changing now, because Google Maps is becoming a lot more useful on your lock screen.

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Glanceable directions, a wider Immersive View rollout, and more planning tools for Google Maps on the web

We may have forgotten about glanceable directions entirely, but that’s because Google announced it in February last year. This addition to Maps brings essential information including your real-time ETA and turn-by-turn directions right to the lock screen, saving you the effort of unlocking your phone each time. Glanceable directions also allow tracking your journey in the route overview, even if you don’t hit the Start button for granular directions. It could, for instance, help double-check the route in a locality you’re familiar with. When enabled, Maps automatically reroutes if you veer off-course while walking, driving, or biking, and updates the route preview accordingly.

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An animation of glanceable directions in action on Google Maps

In the February launch, Google confirmed glanceable directions would arrive on Android and iOS devices worldwide in the coming months. June 2023 rolled by, and the company reassured us the feature would start rolling out that month, and it may have reached a handful of users. Until January 2024, nearly a year to the day Google first spoke of glanceable directions, there was no sign of it on the Maps settings page.

Now, several people on the Android Police team can confirm they are seeing a new toggle for the feature rolling out silently. It's available on all the devices and user accounts we’ve checked in multiple countries, so it appears this is the worldwide rollout we’ve been waiting for.

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New settings toggle for glanceable directions in Maps

You’ll find the toggle for glanceable directions if you tap your profile icon in the top right corner of the screen and head to Settings → Navigation settings. Here you need to scroll just past the Map Display section to find Glanceable directions. Disappointingly, this useful feature is switched off by default, so you may not have noticed its arrival even if you’ve had it for a while now. With glanceable directions enabled, you could enjoy a safer driving experience since you won’t need to unlock your phone as much.

We just hope Google operates on tighter timelines and doesn’t take a whole year to deploy small app user experience enhancements like this in the future.

Thanks:Moshe