Google Maps might be making an important change to location sharing

Plenty of mobile apps let you share your location with your friends and family, and it’s a great feature to use when meeting people or for added peace of mind during a trip. Google Maps is one of those apps, and it’s all the more important on Android, where you can use it to share your location with loved ones and friends.

It turns out that Google is looking to improve the functionality of location sharing, at least when it comes to Android devices.

The company might add new menus to Android’s main Settings app so you can handle all your location-sharing needs in one place.

According to Android Police, Telegram user AssembleDebug found evidence in code that Google is looking to consolidate its location-related services.

The screenshots the user shared on his Gapps Flags & Leaks channel indicate that Google wants to add location management to Google Play Services. Once Google rolls out the functionality, you’ll have a new place to manage location sharing other than Google Maps. You’ll most likely do it from the Google menu in the Settings app.

Google’s new menu will let you enable and disable location sharing for Google apps. That’s also where you’ll see the people you’ve shared your location with via Google apps, including Maps. However, if you use a chat app like WhatsApp to share location with friends, you’ll have to go to that app to turn the feature on and off.

The screenshots also show that Google will display a notification to inform you that you’re sharing your location with others. A shortcut to the Settings app will let you turn sharing off.

It’s unclear when these changes will roll out to Android, but it’s certainly an improvement over the current system. Right now, you have to start sharing your location from within the Google Maps app. Then, you need to head to system settings to turn off sharing. The new method gives you complete management of the feature in one place, making it easier to use.

The changes only apply to Android, and I say that as an iPhone owner who uses Google Maps for navigation. If you want to share your location via Google apps on the iPhone, you’ll have to do it from inside the Google Maps app. Google can’t really change that, as Apple controls the operating system. Apple has its own location-sharing system in place on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac.