Huawei announced that users across the Middle East and Africa will experience an enhanced Petal Maps application, which includes a range of new features and upgrades such as dark mode navigation display over other apps, third-party hotel booking, and destination reviews, all designed to make journey mapping easier and more enjoyable. This is in addition to existing differentiators such as heads-up display, and real-time road condition updates.
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To help users navigate and explore the world easily and intuitively, the updated Petal Maps incorporates add-ons from prominent global partners, and now includes features such as ‘advanced navigation’ and user-generated ‘co-created maps’.
Advanced Navigation: Petal Maps has transformed navigation by pioneering features such as Air Gestures and HUD (heads-up display) mode, and the enhanced version now introduces navigation display over other apps. This keeps an ongoing navigation visible to the user even when switching apps, by appearing in a floating window. This makes it easy for users to focus on the road and navigating easily while driving. When the route encounters a fork in the road, Petal Maps provides intelligent updates that take local terrain into account, such as an uphill or downhill slope, for quick visual identification, and safe and efficient navigation.
Co-created Maps: The enhanced version of Petal Maps also supports a location-specific comments feature, through which users can use text, images, and ratings to leave a comment on a particular location. These reviews can then be viewed by other users, creating a user-generated content layer over the map itself. This brings users the opportunity to share their experiences as modern-day explorers, and to make navigation entertaining.
Saved Places: Petal Maps also includes the acclaimed ‘saved places’ feature, which enables users to save favorite places with one click, group their saved places with ease, and ultimately use them as travel destinations for exiting trips. Users can also create custom names for their saved places and groups for a more personalized experience.
To further enhance user experience, Petal Maps inked a landmark partnership with 2GIS, a world-class geo-data provider with an extensive directory and a detailed map experience, in May 2021. This collaboration is set to improve local point of interests (POI) referencing on Petal Maps for users in the UAE, making the discovery and transit options to their desired destinations easier and more intuitive.
Users can update Petal Maps manually or choose for the application to update automatically via settings. Petal Maps is available to download on HUAWEI AppGallery and Google Play Store.