Google Maps update reduces interference of Assistant during driving

Google Assistant’s integration for Maps has been updated and it now takes very little space when you are navigating during a commute. The recent updates prevent the navigation from closing when you are calling someone or doing some other task on your phone. Previous versions would open up the dialer app, reducing the size of the map to almost a quarter of the screen which is not very helpful while driving to be honest.

Keeping the above in view, the latest updates allow the Assistant to operate only in the lower bottom of the screen. Alongside that, you can also launch YouTube to hear the sound, send text messages and much more. All these features were available in the Android Auto version and now they are being slowly introduced in the vanilla version of Android. Google had already announced plans for a less intrusive version of Assistant back in Google I/O in May and the update to Assistant has just been released so you may not immediately see the change.

This is not the only feature coming to Assistant, this week Google also added the “Pretty Please” feature which makes the Assistant more friendly and family-like. Notes and Lists integration is also coming to it with third-party support also coming from Google Keep, Any.do and others.