Help Google Maps no longer letting me search by category

[wonderbread]

I use to be able to search for categories of things in my area by opening google maps and then clickin 'menu' and then 'search' and immediately a list of categories would pop up and i could click on 'restuarants' for instance and then select by sub category such as 'chinese'. Now, the search button only opens a search box. I've seen the places icon but that's no more than a macro to search for broad words like "bars" or "restuarants" in google maps. It's not a full categorization.

Did this ever exist in google maps or am I confusing it for Yelp?

 

[wonderbread]

I think this was a google labs feature for the maps app. Anyone else use this?

 

[mrsbethyoung]

Have you tried using Places? It should be in your app drawer.

 

[wonderbread]

Have you tried using Places? It should be in your app drawer.

Yeah, like I said

I've seen the places icon but that's no more than a macro to search for broad words like "bars" or "restuarants" in google maps. It's not a full categorization.

I definitely recall that when I clicked on the google maps search button it opened up a menu, and the restaurants menu, for instance, had a sub menu of cuisine.

Is there a way to get places to show sub categories?

 

[mrsbethyoung]

I don't know if it's exactly what you're looking for, but when I go to maps and hit search and start typing restaurant, all the different cuisines pop up as suggestions.

Does that not happen for you?

 

[wonderbread]

I don't know if it's exactly what you're looking for, but when I go to maps and hit search and start typing restaurant, all the different cuisines pop up as suggestions.

Does that not happen for you?

Yeah, looks like that does happen. I guess before it use to just have a menu for all that instead of having to type it in. I'll bet Google is going to further develop that places app into more of a catalog.

 

[mrsbethyoung]

Hmm. Did you happen to download a history wiper? I know there are apps out there that wipe your search history in the market, maps, google search, etc.

Have you tried uninstalling the app, restarting your phone and then reinstalling?

 

[wonderbread]

I uninstalled the Google Maps updates, opened Google Maps, went to menu->More->Labs, and sure enough, "Popular Categories" is an option in labs and it does exactly what I had remembered. When I reinstall the 4.4 updates the Popular Categories Lab is gone.

A couple google threads also report this disappearing functionality:
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Mobile/thread?tid=4ed07be3f9e0518a&hl=en
Uninstall latest version of Google Maps and reinstall previous version - Google Mobile Help