Google launches Plus Codes in India: How to use them on Google Maps

Know About Google launches Plus Codes in India: How to use them on Google Maps

Google Maps has included three brand new features, making it much easier to share long addresses, on mobile and web. The most highlighted feature among this is Plus Codes. This is not a new feature and considered as an easy way to share complex addresses. It works on the system that is helpful to divide the geographic surfaces of the Earth into small “tiled areas”.
The different areas are assigned with a unique 4-digit code and consist of further tiled areas, which are officially recognized with 6 more digits code. After the 4-digit area code, typing in each code will enable a user to zoom into the wanted address. This 10-character long code will help the users to find the exact location on the Google Maps.

Need to Invent Plus Codes

According to the Google, in India, it can be very puzzling to reach at the particular residential address. Some of the addresses are defined in a very proper manner by house numbers and street names, therefore, they are easy to find. On the contrary, some of them can be very complicated and difficult to locate. This issue generally occurs in rural areas.
The code consists of “six characters + city” address format which can be shared, searched, and generated by anyone. Plus Codes works on the concept that each place can be divided into grids. It is free of cost feature which will work even when the user is offline. Also, Google recommended the users not to add the personal names or details while entering any address.

Plus Codes can be used for many reasons. Some of them are conveying the location of any temporary events, directing emergency services to the tormented venue and equips the user a recognizable location for complex addresses.

To Create and Share Plus Codes:
If a user wants to generate and share Plus Codes, he/she can go through the following instructions to do so:

1. Tap the location in the Google Maps
2. Click on the information bar present at the bottom of the page
3. From the expanded bar view, scroll down and search for the Plus Codes, for example, (H887+W3, Noida, Uttar Pradesh)
4. Tap on it once and it will be automatically copied to the clipboard
5. Paste it into the search bar, third-party app or anywhere the location is to be shared.

To see the Location of Plus Codes:
To view the region or location of the Plus Codes, a user has to go through below-mentioned steps:

1. When the Plus Codes is received, copy it to the clipboard
2. Open the Google search, paste the location and press search
3. In the search results, click on the location.
4. Alternatively, the location can be pasted into the search bar of Google Maps itself and then viewed.

Problems With the Google Plus Codes

This Plus Codes feature is not really foolproof. The issue is some addresses in a location may have the same codes. So, this will result in confusion in some cases. For example, if any user is booking a cab, he/she may get confused with the other location in the nearby venue sharing the same code.

Additional Features Launched by Google

The other features which are launched by Google are: Add an Address Smart Address Search

This is with the help of “Add an Address” feature that Google wants to put those locations on its navigating app that were missing so far. The “Smart address search” option does not provide the exact address to its users but, uses AI prowess to identify the close landmarks respective to any specific location for which a user is searching for.
Google also launched “Voice Navigation” feature in 6 more languages: Gujarati, Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Bengali. The voice navigation characteristic was originally added three years ago in Hindi.