Google Maps Has Super App Ambitions

Google Maps already has a user base of more than 1 billion, but a bunch of new features shows it has bigger ambitions.

• The newest update lets users have greater control over their public profiles, like adding a photo or deciding whether to show/hide your contributions to the app (h/t Android Police).
• Last month, the app added "Incognito Mode," which allows you to use the app without Google saving most of your location data.
• In August, it added more support for multimodal trips.
• Earlier this year, Google Maps announced an AR walking tool (it's good).

What's really going on here?

Silicon Valley is looking jealously at its Asian tech rivals and their superapps; China has Tencent’s WeChat and Alibaba’s Alipay. India, Japan, South Korea, and countries in Southeast Asia have nine more. What makes them super is they all feature some combo of messaging, gaming, social media, mobility, and other services. Now, FACEBOOK is trying to make its suite of apps more like WeChat, and even Uber has mobility superapp ambitions.

It's clear from recent moves that Google wants to get there first.