google maps search question

[tjreishus]

So I fly into Sanfran yesterday. I had been showing off the droids capabilities to a co-worker when he asked "how far away is the nearest place to get a haircut from the hotel". At this time we were still at the airport, so I couldn't just say "map of nearest haircut". So I got the map to display the embassy suites, but then couldn't get it to ALSO display places to get a haircut. It was one or the other. I worked on it for about an hour but couldn't figure this one out. Is there a way to display multiple results?

 

[tjreishus]

Figured it out if anyone is interested.



EDIT!! Many of the things I talk about throughout this thread was done on the droid. From other posts I have read, it looks like some of these features don't exist on pre 2.0 phones, eg "My Maps" is one of them.




I'll set up another situation.

Your at the Denver airport going to do a fly fishing trip in Great Fall, MT. You have reservations at the hampton inn. While your waiting for your flight you want to know how far away a tackle shop is from your hotel. I would start by pressing the magnifying glass for over a second to open up the speech search then say, "Map of hampton inn Great Falls Montana". Google maps opens up to Great falls and shows where the hampton inn is. Press on the bubble of the hampton inn to open up more information about it. Near the top, just to the right of where its says Hampton in, there is a star that you can click on to highlight. Highlight the star and now press the back key. You should now see a star below the hampton inn marker. Press menu, then search. You can then enter "Tackle" by typing in "tackle" or you can press the mic button to say "tackle". The Hampton inn marker will go away, and now all the tackle shops will be displayed. The star at the hampton inn will stay there so you know where it is. If you want to know how far away one of the tackle shops is from the hotel (I'll use "scheels" for this example), press on the scheels marker, get direction, click on the square box on the top right of the screen next to "My location". Select "Starred items", then the hampton inn. You should now see a screen that shows the hampton inn as the departure point and Scheels as the destination. Below those two box's you can select driving directions, public transportation or walking directions, then GO. It then will display all the information you need. It's 2.7 miles away (if you select driving directions, not walking) and the directions are all there.

With all the traveling I do, its nice to be able to do some planning before I get there. It really is simple and fast after doing it once.

I'm sure advanced users already know all this but I thought it might help someone out.

 

[DarkTLRrider]

On my g1 when I search for something I want in another city I include the city and state and the name of what I am looking for. When I find the location on the map I hit menu>search>what I am looking for (near that location ie haircut) and hit search. I get locations for haircuts near that location.

 

[tjreishus]

I forgot to mention than I'm using the droid, so the procedure I used only works on the droid and N1. <2.0 won't bring up maps automatically.

 

[tjreishus]

Thats a good point DarkTL. I have tried it and I think it works well when your in places your familiar. The problem I was having was in area's I wasn't familiar. I would bring up the first point and press search near location, but when the results would come up for the second loacation, the map would often shift and I would lose where the original location was. It made it difficult to figure out how close things were to the hotel. Especially if the map shifted and I couldn't remember where the darn hotel was. If you star the hotel before doing another search, the star remains to give you some reference. Thanks for the added input.

 

[DarkTLRrider]

I see your point. I was assuming the search would yield results fairly close to the destination. Good solution though. I know when I took my business trip to Anaheim last month, even though I am familiar with the general area I had no clue what was around the hotel. I lived by my G1 to get things to eat, search out convenience stores, gas stations, and nav to get to the places I needed to go. Made being in a strange neighborhood almost like being a local. I saved the hotel as a contact and everywhere I needed to go like the location of the business I was working with. Then when I came home just deleted the contacts. That allowed me to nav to contact from anywhere in the area.

 

[tuahogary]

you can use google local search or personally, i use aloqa from market (free) and you can drag and drop a pin anywhere on a map to check poi(s) around the vicinity of the pin

 

[tjreishus]

Im going to have to play around with aloqa. Didn't even know it existed. And for DarkTL, business trips like you went on are perfect situations where My Maps come in handy. I don't know if you have every used them before, but if you have time to plan a trip from your desktop before you leave, this is an awesome solution. Forgive me if you know all about this, but I will detail it for those who might not.

It's best described by checking out the google video on it

Google Maps

Once you create a map, you can view all of your custom maps on your phone by going into maps, menu, layers, more layers, my maps. You will then see a list of all the maps you have created from your desktop. If you have turn by turn navigation, you can select any of the points you created on your maps and navigate to them. So for business in another city, you locate all the places you know your going to and mark them in a "my map". When you get there, pull up your map and everything is already labled and easy to navigate to.

 

[tuahogary]

remember, you can download google mymaps from the market too so you can try it out on your android phone!

 

[tjreishus]

I didn't know that was there either. Tried it out for a bit and I think its easier on the desktop for sure, but this will work in a pinch. Very cool.