The Bing Maps Preview has been seeing plenty of updates recently. Not only has it been completely redesigned, but a few days later, some more search features were added. All of this activity is no doubt an effort to have the brand new Bing Maps ready for the imminent release of Windows 10.
Listening to customer feedback, Microsoft has added a feature that will sync “My Places” between Cortana, Bing Maps and Microsoft Maps. Many users have encountered the issue of having to manually add the same location in all three apps. Now though, when Home or Work are added to any one of those apps, the locations will appear in the other two.
Bing Maps has the unique ability allowing a user to organize places into collections. Users can already choose to categorize places by Cities or Holiday Vacation and now Microsoft has added the ability to share these collections with other users.
Microsoft has also made saving places easier. When searching for a location in Bing Maps, there is now an option to save it right in the search results as either Home, Work or Favorite. Alternatively, those same options appear when you right click directly on the map.
Microsoft has also promised that it will soon incorporate the ability to import locations from GPX or KML files. These allow a user to add waypoints, routes and GPS tracking data to a map.
Maps are a cornerstone of every modern OS. In order to take on the competition, Microsoft is really stepping up by adding new features and functionality to Bing Maps and Microsoft Maps solutions. Are there any areas where you think Microsoft is lacking when it comes to maps? Let us know in the comments below.
Further reading: Bing Maps, Cortana, Microsoft, Microsoft Maps
