There are so many times that parking your car has proven difficult, even hazardous. It is an easy task when you think about, but sometimes it may seem like there aren’t enough parking spaces and parking may become a nightmare. That challenge has just been eliminated, thanks to Google.If you have Google’s Android powered phones, parking has been made very easy with the company’s latest application.
Open Spot Application
With an Android powered phone of the with an operating system of version 2.0 or above, the new application, called Open Spot finds you the next vacant parking spot when you want to park your car. What the application does is tell you the parking spots being left vacant as you enter a parking lot, how cool! I used to waste a lot of time, gas and energy finding a parking spot at the local mall till I discovered this application. It is somehow great that an application makes life easier by letting us in on parking spaces that are currently free, all there is to do is drive straight to the spot rather than go round the block as it was before.
How it Works
Google’s new Open Spot Application works in a fascinating way. When a car is freeing up a parking space, the driver simply enters its location on a map using the open spot application. With this information, other drivers looking for parking space in the city simply check their applications for recently vacated parking space and head right in. Recently vacated parking spaces will be displayed as red pins whereas spaces that have been vacated for quite some time will be displayed as orange or yellow pins. It even gets better because, in a move meant to encourage more usage, the application has an incorporated game like reward system that wards “karma points.” The feature is still unavailable in the rest of the world except the US, Canada and Netherlands for phones with Android powered operating systems or above. If you are sick of driving round the city like I was, this is the application you be thinking about. Google Open Spot is as well the latest in the line of Google labs that is revamping the way we do things, and in this case, parking.
Good Faith to Keep it Going
Google Open Spot is quite easy to use, given its working. Really, all you have to do is ensure your Android enabled phone is with you as look for enter the city. A map displaying all the open parking spaces near you will be displayed on your phone’s screen. However, because the application depends on good faith, it is prudent that as you leave a parking spot as well, press the “mark a spot” button and mark the spot for other users. Additionally, you could even be passing an empty spot and can easily mark it too for other drivers who want to park. The application will mark all the empty spots with dots colored differently as explained previously.
What I found amazing with this new application is its radius of cover. It allows you find a parking spot around a 0.9 mile radius of any location you are at. The endless annoying search has been, at least for the time being, solved thanks to Google.
