Google Maps takes the guesswork out of restaurant reviews

Say goodbye to random, unlabeled food pics

Readers like you help support Android Police. When you make a purchase using links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Read More.

Summary

• Google Maps now labels pictures of food on restaurant listings, making it easier to identify what you're looking at.
• The labels are automatically generated and provide information such as the dish name, pricing, and whether it's vegetarian.
• This feature is widely available on the Android app, but not yet on the web version of Google Maps.

We all think of Google Maps when it's time to get directions or check traffic, but it's also one of the best places to find reviews for local restaurants, in large part thanks to all the user-uploaded pictures of food and drinks. Compared to a more narrowly focused competitor like Yelp, however, Google's offering tends to have fewer descriptions attached to those pics, often leaving you wondering what exactly it is that you're looking at. A recent update looks to solve this issue.

As spotted by 9to5Google, Maps has now started labeling the pictures of food people upload to restaurant listings, pairing photos with menu entries for easy identification. The labels are already present on many of the restaurants we checked, as it appears they are automatically generated. According to Google's description of the feature, "Dish information is collected from Google users and businesses. Google analyzes the aggregated data, but doesn’t verify every attribute."

In addition to showing you the name of the dish as it appears on the restaurant's menu, this feature will occasionally show pricing information when available. It also attempts to label the food item with useful information, like whether it's vegetarian or if it's a popular food mentioned in reviews multiple times.

At the bottom of this card, you'll see two buttons: Suggest an edit and See the menu. Tapping the first one lets you suggest an edit for the dish name, mark the name as incorrect or inappropriate, or let Google know that the dish is not served at this restaurant. Tapping See the menu takes you to the restaurant's Menu tab in Google Maps, but sadly, it doesn't scroll the list or highlight the actual menu entry, so you'll still have to do some scaning in order to find the food's full description.

Although it's not available for every individual restaurant or food photo yet, the feature appears to be widely rolled out to the Android app, as it was present on all the devices we tested, which were running Google Maps version 11.112.0102. Google Maps for the web, however, has yet to add this functionality, as photos that were labeled in the Android app were not labeled on the website when we tested earlier today.

Meanwhile, Google Maps recently got a lot more useful for people who commute through tunnels, as the service added support for Bluetooth beacons. These can augment your phone's GPS sensor in places where satellite connectivity is not really an option, helping to improve location accuracy when you're underground. As part of a similar program started by Waze, several cities already support these Bluetooth beacons, including New York City, Chicago, Paris, Rio, Brussels, Oslo, Sydney, Boston, Mexico City, and others.