The most excellent Google Navigation app for Android has been updated to take into account traffic conditions when giving you directions from point A to point B. Alternative routes will also be generated based on current and predicted traffic patterns.
Navigation caused quite a stir when it came out a year and a half ago, since it offered free turn-by-turn directions when many service providers were charging subscription fees, or hawking dedicated personal navigation devices. The only downside at this point is that Navigation still isn’t available in all countries, but most of the bigger ones across Europe are taken care of. Of course Google Maps does a whole bunch of other cool stuff, like provide a place to review venues, get bus times, follow friends on Latitude, and look up points of interest on layers of data, like Wikipedia.
It’s pretty cool that Google’s gathering traffic info, but RIM’s doing it by crowdsourcing GPS data directly from handsets as well, thanks to their acquisition of Dash Navigation. As far as I can tell, the difference is RIM can farm up that data all day long, while I’m under the impression that Google only nabs data when you have the Maps app open.
If you want to try out the feature for yourself, you can find the Navigation option in Google Maps, which, if it’s not already on your phone for some reason, can be found in the Android Market.
[via Google Mobile Blog]