New Google Maps update adds Driving Mode: like Google Now for your car

Google Maps v9.19 is now available and introduces a whole host of new features, including a new driving mode that is kind of like Google Now for your car. The update also adds a toggle so you can quickly turn off voice navigation and introduces a new settings screen for your timeline.

Driving Mode: Google Now for your car

Driving Mode functions a lot like standard navigation combined with Google Now alerts. It attempts to make assumptions about where you’re going based on your regular routes and recent searches and offers up Google Now-style information it thinks is relevant. It will let you know when is a good time to leave and suggest destinations based on recent searches.

New timeline settings screen

The Google Maps timeline – the “pick a day and see where you went” feature – has now been granted its own settings menu so you can customize what and how it displays information. You can toggle whether or not photos appear in your timeline and choose to include your web and app activity in your timeline.

Toggle for audio navigation

When you’re in navigation mode, the turn-by-turn notifications could occasionally get a little annoying. The latest Google Maps update adds a nifty toggle to the navigation screen so you can easily switch between audio off, alerts only or all alerts. It’s kind of like Marshmallow’s priority notifications for Google Maps.

There’s a bunch more stuff hiding in the source code, as uncovered by Android Police’s APK teardown, and you can download the Google Maps APK right now from APK Mirror.