Google Maps for Android Update Brings Better Battery Life to Latitude Users

Unless you’re a regular user, you’ve probably forgotten that Google still has a service out there called Google Latitude. It’s like Apple’s Find My Friends, except it came long before Apple’s app.

Latitude tracks your movement via your smartphone and shares that location with your friends. It can drain a lot of battery, but Google has an update to Maps which could help with that problem.

Google Maps for Android has been updated to version 6.2, and the main feature of the new release is better battery life for Latitude and location history users. Now you’ll be able to let your friends stalk you for longer periods of time. Or it will just mean that you won’t have to plug in your phone quite as often, which is always a good feature to have.

Google Maps 6.3 also issues the standard bug fixes, though they aren’t so big or important to be noted in the description. You’ll still get the voice navigation and all the layers you’re used to, but some small hiccups have been fixed.

Otherwise, it’s still just Google Maps, arguably the best map system available on any mobile platform.

With the improve battery life for Google Latitude it’d be interesting to see how long a Droid RAZR MAXX can go with Latitude turned on. Presumably the update made it easier to get through a day with latitude on an average Android smartphone.

Testing it out on a smartphone with a 3300 mAh battery would be a great test to see just how much battery it saves.

Via: Engadget