[APK Download] Google Maps 9.2 Adds Navigation Settings For Voice Level And Tilt, Auto-Corrects Misspelled Searches

The Maps team has been on a roll ever since the Material makeover early last month. None of the new features are inherently huge, but there is some serious fine-tuning going on. With the release of v9.1, businesses and landmark pages became more informative. The trend continues in v9.2 as there are new improvements to the interface for Navigation and search.

^{If you’re OCD, please try to ignore the mismatched capitalization on the middle screenshot.}

^{Left: Tilt map enabled, Right: Tilt map disabled}

Google also applied some extra smarts to the search field and now attempts to auto-correct misspelled names. Search results have always been adjusted for spelling at the server, but the corrections were never made clear to the user. When a change is made, the new text appears in the search field and a toast message will alert users. Like any auto-correct feature, this still leaves some room for error, but it will probably clear up some confusion and make future searches a little more concise. I just wish there was a way to declare that the entered text is accurate, just for those creatively named destinations. (Weird spellings have burned me a few times.)

^{Left: old version keeps misspelled name in place, Right: new version corrects it in the search field.}

The final addition in this release is a calibration step for the compass built into each phone. It’s simply a dialog asking to have the phone swung around on 3 axes: back and forth, turned left and right, then tipped left and right. If your device needs to go through this step, a dialog will pop up within a second or two of launching the Maps app. So far, only my Nexus 4 has asked me to do this, but none of the other phones or tablets I’ve tried the new version on. There doesn’t appear to be any way to re-initiate the calibration step from within the Maps app, so it appears that this step is only meant to occur once.

There may be more changes hidden around the interface, so feel free to point out anything we’ve missed in the comments. I’ve already cracked open the apk, and a teardown will be posted shortly.

Note: A few people have pointed out the Santa’s Village link in the navigation drawer. It’s sort of new, but not really. Google made it available to older versions of Maps through a server-side push, similar to the Pokemon game on April Fool’s Day. The Santa’s Village link is now hard-coded into the app (for now), so anybody who previously didn’t have it should probably see it after updating.