The New Google Maps: Philadelphia Edition

You’ll notice a bunch of new features about Google Maps today, which is officially rolling out its upgraded version. (Or you might not notice much, since some of them are a little buried.) Here are a few.

A. More interactivity. When you ask for directions to some faraway place, you’ll get detailed transit options that tell you how much that plane ticket is going to cost. 

Or check out public transit options in a newly formatted timetable. Take me to Geno’s, Google. (Never!)

Or Google a concert venue and you’ll get not just the location, but what’s going on that night.

B. Window shopping indoor and outdoor spaces, thanks to the “carousel” of images below, which morph into slideshows or photo galleries.

C. Topographical Terrain Map. (Looks cooler near mountains.)

D. Multiple Route Directions. Take me from work, to Fairmount Park, to … Johnny Brenda’s. By bike, please.

E. Personalization. Perhaps the biggest change is the way that Google Maps will become personalized, in the same way your Search and Gmail are. I must have Googled Resurrection Ale House the other night, because lo and behold, there it is on my map today. (All the blue lines means that Street View is available there; hover over any of them and a mini-Street View will pop up.) If I like Resurrection (I do), I can review it or save it to my map.

There are a ton more changes–100, Google claims. If you have the right kind of browser, for instance, you can surf around in 3D Google Earth mode without downloading the software you had to in the past. But this is a good place to start for now.