Google Maps is a desktop web mapping service developed by Google. It offers satellite imagery, street maps, 360° panoramic views of streets (Street View), real-time traffic conditions (Google Traffic), and route planning for traveling by foot, car, bicycle (in beta), or public transportation.

Google Maps began as a C++ desktop program designed by Lars and Jens Eilstrup Rasmussen at Where 2 Technologies. In October 2004, the company was acquired by Google, which converted it into a web application. After additional acquisitions of a geospatial data visualization company and a realtime traffic analyzer, Google Maps was launched in February 2005. The service's front end utilizes JavaScript, XML, and Ajax. Google Maps offers an API that allows maps to be embedded on third-party websites, and offers a locator for urban businesses and other organizations in numerous countries around the world. Google Map Maker allows users to collaboratively expand and update the service's mapping worldwide.

Google Maps is a mapping mobile app developed by Google for the Android and iOS operating systems; it uses Google Maps for its information. It was first released for Android on September 23, 2008, and later for iOS on December 13, 2012 as an alternative to Apple Maps, which was released with iOS 6.

Background

On November 28, 2007, Google Maps for Mobile 2.0 was released. Its location service can work with or without a GPS receiver. The "my location" feature uses the GPS / Assisted GPS location of the mobile device, if available, supplemented by determining the nearest wireless networks and cell sites. The software looks up the location of the cell site using a database of known wireless networks and sites. By triangulating the different signal strengths from different cell transmitters and then using their location property (retrieved from the online cell site database), My Location determines the user's current location. Wireless network location method is calculated by discovering the nearby WiFi hotspots and using their location property (retrieved from the online WiFi database, in the same way as the cell site database) to further discover the user's location. The order in which these take precedence is: