Android now has Google Maps feature as classy as iOS

Google has just announced the Android 16 Beta 2.1 update, which brings a new feature called Live Updates. This feature allows prominent notifications related to progress to be displayed on the status bar, notification panel, lock screen, and Always On display.

In fact, Google introduced the feature back in January but didn't let developers test it yet. However, with the recent beta, Live Updates is now officially available, with Google Maps becoming the first app to support it.

In the new update, notifications from the app are displayed as the familiar Google Maps arrow in the status bar, and stand out in the notification panel even when there are priority conversations, making it easy for users to identify important notifications.

In addition to Google Maps, a number of other apps have started supporting this feature. On the Pixel device I tested, Google Maps not only shows the next arrival time, but also provides an estimated time of arrival (ETA) in the arrow in the status bar. But if the information is too long, it will be truncated, especially when multiple apps are showing Live Updates.

The Google Maps status bar arrow uses a familiar navigation icon and a green background color for easy identification. Tapping the arrow expands the notification in the notification panel without having to drag the entire panel down.

However, one drawback is that notifications from both the test app and Google Maps are minimized on the Always On display. This makes the Live Updates feature only partially available in this beta. In future updates, it is likely that this feature will be improved to make it easier for users to follow navigation information from Google Maps than ever before.

Marvin Fry

Update 11 March 2025