Just 6 years ago the Apple Watch was presented in society, a device that was an important leap for the apple company and that today is already one of the star products of the brand. As incredible as it may seem, Google Maps did not have a dedicated app for this device until today, despite a failed attempt some time ago. And it is curious for being one of the main GPS navigation applications around the world. But now we can be happy to say that we can find it in watchOS.

So you can have Google Maps on your Apple Watch

Several weeks ago the company of the great ‘G’ announced that its map application for Apple watches was very close, although they did not give a specific date. In the last hours an update of the iOS app has been released that finally brings compatibility with watchOS. In fact, the installation could be automatic in case you have activated these parallel downloads on your Apple Watch. If not, you can go to the watchOS App Store, perform a Google Maps search, and download it to your watch. It’s that simple and fast.

First look at Google Maps on watchOS

It is really early to make a complete review of the application on the clock and to say if its operation is correct and to what extent it can replace the native version of Apple Maps that we found. However, we can already know the interface and the truth is that at the moment it leaves much to be desired. At the aesthetic level you can not reproach much considering that it is an app designed for very small screens, but in terms of functionality it has a lot to implement. We find buttons to set the duration on outstanding journeys such as home or work, as well as those to edit shortcuts or activate the travel mode. But only appearance, since you can not do anything from the app without resorting to the iPhone. In fact, it asks to open the app on the mobile to be able to perform any of the functions it shows.

We understood that some more specific and even advanced functions such as reviewing the TimeLine of Google Maps as on the iPhone was not going to be possible, but the truth is that we expected something more independent of the iPhone for the watch app. If we start a route from the phone if we find that the clock gives us indications of where to move and the estimated duration of arrival. This is tremendously useful and visually identical to what we found with the native maps app. Obviously here the differences that exist between Google Maps and Apple Maps to determine which is better.

We will have to wait for future versions of this app in watchOS to see if we see improvements and especially for those devices that are LTE, since they understand that it should work more independently. In any case we are glad to have such a popular and necessary application on a device like the Apple Watch after so many years.