We knew he was on his way and, at last, he is here: the new Google Maps widget that was released on iOS already seems to have been activated for everyone, and also for those who have versions prior to Android 12.
It could be said that it is the first Google Maps widget, because until now what it had was five shortcuts. Google Maps debuts with the same Material You design as recent Google widgets, with a search bar and shortcuts to search categories.
New Google Maps widget
Google Maps has a new widget on Android and, depending on how you look at it, it could be considered its first widget, because until now it had several shortcuts. This widget is called Quick search and has a default size of 3 x 2.
However, like most of the latest generation widgets, it is very flexible, adapting more or less gracefully to all types of sizes. The widget combines a search bar and buttons to start routes or searches. They come together, although if you resize the widget to a height of one block, only the search bar is displayed.
As you might expect, tapping on the search bar opens Google Maps, where you can search for anywhere. The accesses shown below vary and include everything from saved places (home, work) to searches for nearby points of interest. In Android 12, the colors are adapted to those of the system. Not in previous versions, with a blue tone and a white and gray background.
Possible buttons shown below include restaurants, hotels, shopping, cafeterias, ATMs, hospitals, supermarkets and basically all categories of points of interest in Google Maps. Tapping somewhere like home or work opens the route to it from your current location. Tapping on a category opens a search for those kinds of places around you.