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The feature has to be turned on by the user and provides the option to encrypt the backup either with a password or a 64-digit encryption key. Multimedia messages are sent by uploading the image, audio or video to be sent to an HTTP server and then sending a link to the content along with its Base64 encoded thumbnail, if applicable. On November 14, 2016, WhatsApp added video calling for users using Android, iPhone, and Windows Phone devices.
Frontier alignments also present some differences between google.cn/maps and google.com/maps. Google.com/maps also uses GCJ-02 data for the street map, but uses WGS-84 coordinates for satellite imagery, causing the so-called China GPS shift problem. When a user searches for a business, the results are downloaded in the background for insertion into the side panel and map; the page is not reloaded. Adding reviews, photos, videos, new places, new roads or providing useful information gives points to the users. The feature allows users to track their journey from their device’s lock screen. Between 2020 and 2025, a number of changes were made to the mobile version of Google Maps that reoriented the app’s original purpose of navigation, wayfinding, and exploration towards social visibility, gamified presence, and performance.
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The feature is available for roads in the US, India, Japan and Indonesia with further expansion planned. In August 2017, Google Maps for Android was updated with new functionality to actively help the user in finding parking lots and garages close to a destination. At the end of 2015 Google Maps announced its new offline functionality, but with various limitations – downloaded area cannot exceed 120,000 square kilometers and require a considerable amount of storage space. The original standalone iOS version did not support the iPad, but tablet support was added with version 2.0 in July 2013.
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In April 2023, the app rolled out a feature that would allow account access across multiple phones, in a shift that would make it more like competitors. It was also not available for iOS users on launch, due to limitations from Apple. In August 2021, WhatsApp launched a feature that allows chat history to be transferred between mobile operating systems. In December 2023, WhatsApp’s “View Once” feature expanded to include voice messages.
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Google Maps is a web mapping platform and consumer application developed by Google. Get the latest version of the Google Maps app to use turn-by-turn voice navigation, download offline areas, and much more. Any partnerships or business relationships we may have with any transportation service providers do not influence the ranking of these services. In 2016, WhatsApp was accused of copying features from a then-unreleased version of iMessage. In May 2014, WhatsApp crossed 50 million monthly active users in India, which is also its largest country by the number of monthly active users, then 70 million in October 2014, making users in India 10% of WhatsApp’s total user base.
- On January 27, 2014, documents leaked by Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA and the GCHQ intercepted Google Maps queries made on smartphones, and used them to locate the users making these queries.
- However, with the announcement of iOS 6 in June 2012, Apple announced that they had created their own Apple Maps mapping service, which officially replaced Google Maps when iOS 6 was released on September 19, 2012.
- Local users can text special numbers in the app to launch an in-app shopping process, where they can order groceries.
- Get the latest version of the Google Maps app to use turn-by-turn voice navigation, download offline areas, and much more.
- According to a former Google Maps employee (who was not authorized to speak publicly), users can submit changes to Google Maps, but some submissions are ruled upon by people with little local knowledge of a place, such as contractors in India.
- As a result, in March 2008 Google added a feature to edit the locations of houses and businesses.
This allows users to send messages between other messaging apps and WhatsApp while maintaining end-to-end encryption. In December 2019, WhatsApp announced that a new update would lock out any Apple users who had not updated to iOS 9 or higher and Samsung, Huawei, Sony and Google users who had not updated to version 4.0 by February 1, 2020. Providing a bundle of these free of charge to users will work like a gateway drug of sorts – users who may be able to afford data services and phones these days just don’t see the point of why they would pay for those data services. As of May 2025, the service had 3 billion monthly active users, making it the most used messenger app. The privacy change, an update to the Gmail iOS app that “now supports sign-in across Google iOS apps, including Maps, Drive, YouTube and Chrome”, meant that Google would be able to identify users’ actions across its different apps. Additionally, Quartz reported in April 2014 that a “sneaky new privacy change” would have an effect on the majority of iOS users.
Timeline
- They expressed the concern that regular WhatsApp users still could not tell the difference between end-to-end encrypted messages and regular messages.
- There were a series of incidents between 2017 and 2020, after which WhatsApp announced changes for Indian users of the platform that labels forwarded messages as such.
- In August 2013, WhatsApp added voice messages to their apps, giving users a way to send short audio recordings directly in their chats.
- Open Whisper Systems said that they had already incorporated the protocol into the latest WhatsApp client for Android, and that support for other clients, group/media messages, and key verification would be coming soon after.
- In May 2022, the FBI stated that an ISIS sympathizer, who was plotting to assassinate George W. Bush, was arrested based on his WhatsApp data.
In February 2025, as a response to Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14172, the Gulf of Mexico was relabeled to “Gulf of America” for US users and “Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)” elsewhere, except for Mexico itself where it remained the Gulf of Mexico. Since 2016, Google Maps has displayed both Persian Gulf and Arabian Gulf on the body of water and shows “either Arabian or Persian Gulf to local users, depending on geolocation and language settings.” Also in November 2023, Google apologized after pin up online casino users were directed through desert roads after parts of Interstate 15 were closed due to a dust storm. According to the lawsuit, multiple people had notified Google about the state of the bridge, which collapsed in 2013, but Google had not updated the route information and continued to direct users over the bridge.
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Local users can text special numbers in the app to launch an in-app shopping process, where they can order groceries. The Cloud API enables businesses to integrate WhatsApp with other software, have a central WhatsApp account for multiple users and implement advanced automation. In May 2022, WhatsApp launched its Cloud API services (now known as WhatsApp Business Platform) for larger businesses requiring features beyond the WhatsApp Business App.
WhatsApp Web
The road had been turned to mud by rain, resulting in nearly 100 vehicles being trapped. In February 2024, two German tourists were stranded for a week after Google Maps directed them to follow a dirt track through Oyala Thumotang National Park and their vehicle became trapped in mud. In May 2015, searches on Google Maps for offensive racial epithets for African Americans pointed the user to the White House; Google apologized for the incident. Because many companies utilize Google Maps data, these previously obscure or incorrect names then gain traction; the names are often used by realtors, hotels, food delivery sites, dating sites, and news organizations.
After financial regulators in many regions raised concerns, Facebook stated that the currency, renamed Diem since December 2020, would require a government-issued ID for verification, and the wallet app would have fraud protection. This “Facebook coin” would reportedly be a stablecoin pegged to the value of a basket of different foreign currencies. The project reportedly involved more than 50 engineers under the direction of former PayPal president David A. Marcus.
On February 28, 2019, The New York Times reported that Facebook was “hoping to succeed where Bitcoin failed” by developing an in-house cryptocurrency that would be incorporated into WhatsApp. The service became generally available in India and Brazil, and in Singapore for WhatsApp Business transactions only. WhatsApp Payments (marketed as WhatsApp Pay) is a peer-to-peer money transfer feature. According to a white paper that was released along with the announcement, WhatsApp messages are encrypted with the Signal Protocol.
According to WhatsApp, the exploit “targeted at least 100 human-rights defenders, journalists and other members of civil society” among a total of 1,400 users in 20 countries. In September 2022, a critical security issue in WhatsApp’s Android video call feature was reported. At the beginning of 2022, it was revealed that San Diego–based startup Boldend had developed tools to hack WhatsApp’s encryption, gaining access to user data, at some point since the startup’s inception in 2017. On November 29, 2021, an FBI document was uncovered by Rolling Stone, revealing that WhatsApp responds to warrants and subpoenas from law enforcement within minutes, providing user metadata to the authorities. The enforcement of the privacy policy was postponed from February 8 to May 15, 2021, WhatsApp announced they had no plans to limit the functionality of the app for those who did not approve the new terms.
Rudd publicly called for police and intelligence agencies to be given access to WhatsApp and other encrypted messaging services to prevent future terror attacks. In December 2015, it was reported that terrorist organization ISIS had been using WhatsApp to plot the November 2015 Paris attacks. The message reportedly contained a malicious file, the receipt of which resulted in Bezos’ phone being hacked.
One day later, The Guardian reported that Google was preparing its own Google Maps app, which was released on December 12, 2012. However, at launch, Apple Maps received significant criticism from users due to inaccuracies, errors and bugs. A version specifically for Windows Mobile was released in February 2007 and the Symbian app was released in November 2007. The first mobile version of Google Maps (then known as Google Local for Mobile) was launched in beta in November 2005 for mobile platforms supporting J2ME. Google Maps is available as a mobile app for the Android and iOS mobile operating systems.
Within China, the State Council mandates that all maps of China use the GCJ-02 coordinate system, which is offset from the WGS-84 system used in most of the world. Due to restrictions on geographic data in China, Google Maps must partner with a Chinese digital map provider in order to legally show Chinese map data. It was a free service that did not require an API key until June 2018 (changes went into effect on July 16), when it was announced that an API key linked to a Google Cloud account with billing enabled would be required to access the API.
Google has said it created its maps from third-party data, public sources, satellites, and users, but many names used have not been connected to any official record. My Maps is a feature in Google Maps launched in April 2007 that enables users to create custom maps for personal use or sharing. Map users can view different floors of a building or subway station by clicking on a level selector that is displayed near any structures which are mapped on multiple levels. In 2017, the app was reported to have two billion users on Android, along with several other Google services including YouTube, Chrome, Gmail, Search, and Google Play.