Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Google Maps rolls out fly-around imagery of top landmarks

Unveiled at its I/O event earlier this year, Google is now rolling out a cool feature for Maps that offers 3D fly-around views of famous landmarks.

The new Immersive Views feature is available for both iOS and Android and offers highly detailed aerial views of well-known places such as London’s Big Ben, New York City’s Empire State Building, and Tokyo’s Skytree.

Recommended Videos

Keen to try the feature? Simply use Maps to find one of the landmarks above and then glance down at the bottom of the display where the photos appear. The one at the far left is the one you’re after. Select it to make it full screen, and then enjoy the show.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

After that, search for other landmarks to see if they’re one of the 100 or so places that Immersive Views works for at launch.

To build the feature, Google said it fused billions of aerial and street level images to create what it describes as a “high-fidelity representation” of a location.

The web giant said that when the Immersive Views feature is fully ready, the rich content will enable you to experience “what a neighborhood, landmark, restaurant or popular venue is like,” and even make you “feel like you’re right there before you ever set foot inside.”

It’s certainly a fun way to use Maps to help you get to know a location better — whether you’re already living there or are planning a visit — and adds yet another snazzy trick to Maps’ already bulging box of brilliant features.

Other Maps features being gradually rolled out for hundreds of cities in the coming weeks include more detailed data for cyclists, such as information on steep hills, staircases, road types, and traffic levels. Route comparison is also being enabled so cyclists can select the most suitable route to their to destination.

Finally, Maps will now notify you when someone you’re sharing locations with arrives at their destination.

Want to know how to get the most out of Google Maps? Then this Digital Trends article tells you everything you need to know.

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
Running out of storage on your Google Pixel 9? Here’s how to get more
The Google Pink 9 in its pink color.

The Google Pixel 9 is finally here, promising some impressive upgrades. The good news is that the minimum storage you get on this phone is 128GB. The bad news, following in the footsteps of an overarching industrywide trend, is that there is no native option for storage expansion — even if you have the Pixel 9 Pro or Pixel 9 Pro XL.

That’s a particularly undesirable status quo, especially for a phone that primarily caters to an audience hoping to click a ton of pictures and videos. However, there are still a few ways to make the best of the storage situation on the Pixel 9, even though it doesn’t support expansion via a microSD card.
Is there any hope?

Read more
Google Maps is getting 2 helpful new features. Here’s how they work
Google Maps running on a Pixel 8 Pro, showing the new colors as of November 2023.

Google Maps is getting some useful new features that should significantly improve navigation. This follows a major redesign that Google unveiled during Google I/O 2024 that showcased a cleaner home screen, new pin colors, and a more simplified interface with three new tabs rather than five.

In this case, there are actually two sets of updates: one for Google Maps and another for Waze, which, in case you weren’t aware, is also owned by Google. Starting with Google Maps, users will now get additional guidance on entering buildings and where to park when driving.

Read more
This is what Google Maps’ big redesign looks like
Redesigned Google maps.

Redesigned Google Maps app Google

In recent years, Google Maps has felt like it's an afterthought to Google. As Apple Maps continues to improve with better navigation, cleaner transit layers, and better information, Google Maps has lagged. That’s why we’re thrilled about the redesigned Google Maps app that Google showcased at Google I/O 2024.

Read more