It's no secret that Google loves launching new services and tools with a lot of fanfare and then killing them off silently within a couple of years. The most recent victim of this strategy was its Stadia streaming service which bit the dust just over a month ago. Now, it seems like the company is ready to pull the trigger on its dedicated Street View app too.
9to5Google has decompiled the latest version of the Google Street View app, which happens to be version 2.0.0.484371618. It contains a bunch of hidden deprecation notices and one of them reads:
Street View App is going away
The app is going away and support will end March 21, 2023.
To publish your own 360 video, switch to Street View Studio. To view Street View and add Photo Spheres, use Google Maps.
As the message indicates, the dedicated Street View mobile app is being shut down on March 21, 2023, but the Street View Studio web app will continue to live on. Meanwhile, Street View functionality will survive through Google Maps too. Screenshots of the deprecation messages can be seen below:
For those unaware, Street View gives you a 360-degree view of streets in the world (duh). Interestingly, Google Maps already offers this functionality through integration with the Street View service, so it makes sense that the dedicated app is being axed.
That said, it is important to note that a replacement will not be offered for Photo Paths, currently present in Street View. They are a way of letting anyone submit photos of a path that hasn't been documented yet.
Source and original image: 9to5Google
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