Google Maps just quietly dropped its most useful update yet

• Introducing automatic parking detection on iPhone
• You can also change your car’s parking icon now

If you live in or near an urban area like I do, then you know that the parking struggle can get pretty real. Just a few weekends ago, I was at a local Japanese culture festival which was so packed I had to park nearly two miles away and walk across several roadways to get to the public venue the festival was being held in. I took a picture of where I parked, but completely forgot to add a pin to Google Maps, and ended up making a wrong turn on a cross street on the way back to my car, resulting in a ten-minute accidental detour, which was a literal pain for my already aching feet.

Fortunately, Google Maps has quietly added a new feature for forgetful folks like me that should help us get back to our cars as efficiently as possible, even if we forget to add parking details on a given route.

Introducing automatic parking detection on iPhone

Don’t worry about remembering to add your parking details, Google already knows

According to a LinkedIn post by Rio Akasaka, Senior Product Manager for Google Maps, a new parking tool has quietly rolled out that automatically detects where Google Maps users park their vehicle as soon as they stop the car. Even if users don’t use the parking pin function, the automatic parking save feature will add an icon marking a car’s spot that will stick for 48 hours or until they start driving again.

Currently, this automatic parking detection is only available on iPhone. A similar parking reminder feature exists on Android, but the parking icon will only go away if users manually remove it. As of right now, iOS is the only platform where the process is completely automatic.

You can also change your car’s parking icon now

It’s not the most useful, but it is fun

Perhaps taking a note from competitor Waze, Google is also making it a little bit more fun to see where you parked your car. Now, instead of a boring P icon users can set a custom car icon to represent their parking spot with all different kinds of options for color, body, etc. Those who use Google Maps’ custom car icon for driving directions will, of course, recognize these designs, but It’s nice to have some consistency in the app with the car icon now being able to represent parking as well as driving.