Google Maps now lets you pinpoint where you parked plus what's left on the meter
To mark your parking spot, you just open Google Maps as you get out of the car and tap on the blue dot that shows your current location.
Do you ever park in a lot and return hours later only to find that you have no idea where in the labyrinth you left your vehicle?
One easy solution is to use your smartphone to help remember where you parked and snap one of the signs in a lot marking the area you're in. But it would be even easier to use a map app to mark where you've parked.
Now Google Maps offers both these options to help avoid the stress of losing your car. The only thing you'll need to remember is to open Google Maps as you exit the car and tap on the blue dot that shows your current location.
The feature, simply called 'Parking Location', is currently only supported on Android devices. Google Maps creates a card that shows the approximate location of the vehicle and lets you enter notes about the spot, how much parking time is left if it's a metered space, and a handy option to add photos of parking landmarks, such as location signs.
An improvement on merely taking a photo of nearby markers is that Google Maps will send you a notification indicating that the location has been saved.
When you're ready to leave, you return to the notification to find the vehicle and then clear it for the next time you need to mark a parking spot. It will also be automatically cleared at the next saved spot. The current parking location can also be found in the search suggestions field in Google Maps.
It appears that Google, on this occasion, has recognized that some features are better being manually controlled than handled by smart, automated features.
Google previously went down the smart path, enabling Google Now to sense when you've finished driving and automatically remember where you parked. However, as Android Police notes, it hasn't reliably made it easier to recall where a car was left in a multi-level lot.