The year-end holiday travel season is here, and if you’re skipping the airport and hitting the highway for your family gatherings, both Google Maps and Apple’s Maps have apps that can help save you time and money. Sure, online map navigation has been around for years, but if you haven’t used the apps for the long haul lately, both companies have recently improved their tools for modern road-trip concerns — like finding electric-vehicle charging stations or not getting lost in low-signal country. Here’s an overview.
Pick a Route
For many people, Google Maps (for Android, iOS and WearOS) and Apple’s Maps (for its iOS devices and Apple Watches) have become the go-to tools for getting around. The apps are free, easy to use and often installed by default on a device. (Ad-free subscription products like TomTom GO and Sygic GPS Navigation are app-store alternatives for those who want options.)
Getting started is simple: Open Google Maps or Apple’s Maps, enter the destination point for your trip, tap the Directions button and enter your departure point. The app shows you potential routes — with time and toll costs — between the two places. Both apps let you add stops along the way and filter out toll roads, highways and other factors from your driving route.
On Google Maps, you can also choose your car’s engine type for the most fuel-efficient and eco-friendly journey. For many routes, the app displays Street View image previews of the roads you’ll be taking so you can familiarize yourself before you leave. Google recently introduced an Immersive View feature that blends its Street View images with artificial intelligence and other technology to create even deeper and more detailed route previews; Immersive View is so far available in 15 cities, including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Miami.
When you start your trip, both the Google and Apple apps provide visual and audible turn-by-turn directions, either right on your phone or through your car’s display — if your phone is connected through a dashboard system that supports Android Auto or Apple’s CarPlay software.
Although it is a separate download, Google also owns the Waze app for crowdsourced traffic information from its users. Waze is favored by some drivers for its real-time updates and rerouting directions, and the app has recently added new features, like crash-history alerts for roads that are frequent accident sites.
Pull Over and Plug In
If you have an electric…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at NYT > Travel…