After a long and gloomy winter, many people are looking forward to some summer travel. Google has some new tools to help you plan, but like most of what Google does now, the new features lean heavily on AI. And unusually, the most interesting of these additions is launching first on iOS.
Google says that lots of people tend to take screenshots when they're planning a trip. Instead of letting those images become lost in your camera roll, Google will let you feed them into Maps. The new screenshot list feature will let you add those images to Maps, where Gemini will scan them to identify locations.
This feature is opt-in, and the AI doesn't appear to detect locations with image recognition. Instead, it looks for place names in text, allowing you to review the results before marking them on the map for later perusal.
Google confirms to Ars that all Maps image processing happens on device, which is probably why it's only analyzing text. Your screenshots added to Maps in this way will never leave your device. Google says this feature is arriving in the Maps app for iOS this week. Android users will have to wait a bit longer, but Google doesn't have a timeline other than "soon."