Last week, we reported that Google was adding a Save Your Parking feature to Google Maps. However, now the unofficial feature in Google Maps 9.49 beta has disappeared, according to AndroidHeadlines. It was never officially announced, so we are quite certain that the search giant was just testing the feature on the beta version.
Google removes Save Your Parking feature from Maps
As the parking feature was not officially announced and has been taken back by Google, it looks like the feature is a work in progress. Maybe the team found a bug in the feature, or maybe they just needed some more time before announcing it officially. At the very least, we hope it is still in development because it had many cool functions.
Contrary to Google’s automatic parking saving feature, which guessed the location of the user’s car on the basis of where they approximately stopped driving and displayed the information on their feed, the Save your Parking feature gave a more accurate and manual way of finding where your car is parked or saving the location for future reference.
The new feature, which was removed within just 10 days of it being noticed, allowed a user to add notes, attach photos for their reference, and set a time limit for metered parking. The information was saved as a notification on the application, and the user could access it whenever they had to go back to their car.
Replaced with Share Your Location
The feature came in the form of a new menu option when the user opened Google Maps and tapped on the blue icon which marks their location. Users were given the option to save their parking location, and then a blue “P” was placed on the spot.
After its debut, the beta version of Google Maps got a few upgrades to 9.49.1 and 9.49.2, but it is not certain which one of them removed the Parking feature. It could be that the U.S. firm removed the feature through a server-side update, notes AndroidHeadlines. Now, in its place, you will see a Share Your Location functionality that began rolling out to more users after its elimination from Google+.
Nevertheless, it was a welcome and thoughtful feature and would be extremely useful if rolled out officially. The feature is removed now (and we don’t know why), so maybe Google is making some changes before the official release on its Maps app.
