Google Maps for Android recently hit version 4.4, and the update brought a lot of great new features with it. Google Maps now makes it easier than ever to find new places around you with a new, dedicated Places application. If you already got the update to 4.4, you should now have a new Places icon in your application menu. Places is a powerful new tool that will let you find whatever sort of establishment you are looking for quickly and easily.

When you open up Places, you will be able to choose a type of place from a preset list that includes things like restaurants, coffee shops, and petrol stations. You can also look for any other type of place you might be interested in by doing a custom search. These are not ‘brand new’ features. Applications like Yelp, and Where have been providing similar functionality for a while now. Places really stands out because of the additional information it can give you.  If you are walking into a restaurant for the first time, just open Places, and you will find photos, reviews, parking information, prices, and a link to the restaurant’s menu when available. Places will also show you business hours right in the search results so you won’t ruin a first date by going to a closed restaurant ever again!

All of these great new features join the existing top notch navigation features you know and love from previous versions of Google Maps. Now you can pick a restaurant, get directions, and find out where to park all from your Android phone. Also, there won’t be any surprises when you see the prices on the menu.

Google Maps 4.4 is available now on the Android Application Market, and it will be available soon for Blackberry users. If you are running Android 1.6 or later, you could not ask for a better application to help you find new places near you. Not only will it tell you what’s nearby, it’ll also tell you how to get there, and what to expect once you are there. What more could you ask for? With all of these great features, Places and Google Maps 4.4 are both welcome additions to the Google application suite. Check it out the next time you are looking for a new place nearby.

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