Google Maps has featured internal floor plans of malls, airports, and other popular hot spots for some time now, but only on the Android mobile app. Now, the company is rolling out the same functionality on desktops, just in time for Black Friday shoppers to plan their trip to the mall before leaving home.
Currently the feature includes about 10,000 floor plans for select locations in Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Japan, Switzerland, Sweden, the UK, and the US. A full listing of indoor maps availability can be found on this Google support page alongside an option for users to contribute a floor plan of a public location.
To bring up a floor plan, all you need to do is zoom into a building on Maps, and provided the data has been uploaded you'll be able to check stores within a mall, sections within a department store or supermarket, the gate layout of an airport, or even find the blackjack tables inside a casino, among many other things.
The feature is more useful on a smartphone but it's nonetheless a nice little addition to have on desktops as well. This also means that those on other platforms, including iOS, will be able to browse to the web-based version of Google Maps from their phones and access floor plans on the go. At the moment, however, the desktop version is limited to the main floor of buildings while the Android app can view multiple levels.