What you’ll want to know
- Google Maps might quickly allow you to order meals with Gemini, chopping out apps like Uber Eats and DoorDash.
- Hidden code within the newest Google Maps app factors to an upcoming “Ask Maps to order meals” function, nevertheless it’s not stay but.
- The function seems to construct on Gemini’s Ask Maps expertise, taking customers from restaurant discovery to inserting an order in a single dialog.
Google Maps has lengthy been the go-to app for locating an excellent place to eat. Quickly, it could even be the app that orders your meal earlier than you even arrive.
The most recent model of Google Maps (26.27.00.941319029) has code strings hinting that the app may very well be used for extra than simply discovering eating places and letting customers order meals by way of its Gemini-powered Ask Maps expertise, as noticed by the oldsters at Android Authority. If it really works as supposed, customers may not need to get into apps like Uber Eats or DoorDash to put an order.
The strings consult with a function known as “Ask Maps to order meals.” The function is not stay at this level, however the wording offers one of many clearest glimpses but into what Google is planning.
One of many promotional messages reads: “Inform us what you’re craving, discover native favorites, and Maps will order for you — even whenever you’re on the go.” Different strings embody a shortcut to “Order meals,” a “Attempt it out” button, and an choice to dismiss the immediate for later.
Gemini does the heavy lifting
The concept most likely stems from Ask Maps, an AI assistant Google unveiled earlier this yr. Gemini already has a function that lets customers discover eating places and points of interest via natural-language conversations, as an alternative of conventional key phrase searches. It seems like Google is not stopping at simply suggestions. As a substitute, it seems like the following logical step is to finish the order for you.
We don’t but know precisely how Google plans to do that. The massive unknown is that if Gemini will be capable to do your complete ordering course of within the cloud or if it’s going to lean on Google’s newer on-device AI capabilities.
A number of the performance might require newer {hardware} to work too, such because the agentic AI options Google lately introduced for the Pixel 10 sequence, which may do issues like place orders, Android Authority factors out. That stated, Maps has at all times supplied the identical core expertise throughout Android units, so it’d be shocking if meals ordering was restricted to a handful of telephones in spite of everything.
Then there’s the query of what sort of ordering Google has in thoughts. The app’s strings seem geared towards pickup, implying Maps can order meals when you’re driving.
If this function sounds acquainted, it’s as a result of Google has tried in-app meals ordering earlier than. The corporate has additionally rolled out restaurant ordering into Search, Assistant, and Maps years in the past with companions together with DoorDash and different supply providers. This time, it’s the AI tier that’s completely different.
However for now there is no such thing as a public interface to check and no timeline for launch. As with all APK teardown, simply since you see the code doesn’t imply the function will ship. Google builds a whole lot of stuff that by no means makes it into secure releases.
Android Central’s Take
I might be all for that if it truly helps me not bounce round between three completely different apps to get dinner sorted. If Google Maps can counsel a restaurant, order my dish, and have it prepared for me after I arrive, that is an actual quality-of-life improve. However Google additionally tends so as to add extra options to Maps yearly, and a few of them do not stick. I’d somewhat see the corporate nail down a quick, dependable ordering expertise than flip Maps into one more bloated app that’s attempting to do all the things and does little or no effectively.
