google silently updates google maps with a truly useful traffic feature 144021 7 6 photos
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And while many believe that Google should merge Google Maps and Waze and launch one killer app that everyone would use, the company keeps both of them alive, although it sometimes brings features from one to the other to improve certain capabilities.

This is the case of traffic flow information, which has recently been added to Google Maps.

As you can see in the video embedded at the end of the article, Google has silently updated Google Maps with a neat animation that shows the direction of the traffic flow. If you also use Waze, you probably find this feature rather familiar, and it’s all because this is where it was first added.

The Google-owned Waze uses a similar animation to display the direction of the traffic flow, so it now looks like the same approach is being used for Google Maps as well.

However, it appears that this new feature in Google Maps is rolling out gradually to users across the world. At this point, it’s missing on my iPhone running the latest version of Google Maps, and the same on my Samsung Galaxy Note9 with fully up-to-date apps.

On the other hand, several users have already confirmed they received a similar update after installing the latest version of Google Maps, so most likely, the search giant is just enabling the direction of traffic flow for users across the world in stages. This means everybody should get it in the coming weeks on both iPhone and Android – hopefully, the same update would make its way to Android Auto and CarPlay too.

If you get the latest version of the app, you can download the Google Maps APK installer using this link.