As part of Google’s efforts to make its interfaces more user-friendly, Google announced the launch of a new tab on Google Maps, called “My Places,” which gives users a place where they can see the places they’ve starred on Google Maps, rated on Google Places or added to a customized map with icons and annotations through My Maps. This will be a great help for the people who are always on move or those who might be spending their time away from their hometown and need to know instantly where exactly they need to reach.

“Items are organized by date with your most recent activity at the top, and filters make it easy to sort and view only your maps, starred locations or rated places,” as explained by Google software engineer Hiroki Asakawa. “And of course, you can still create and share personalized My Maps through the ‘Create new map’ link.”

“My Places also simplifies your ability to manage the locations that make up your personalized maps experience,” adds Asakawa. “Using the drop-down arrow next to each location in your list, you can easily delete any of your saved maps, stars or Google Places ratings. These personalization changes will automatically be synchronized across all other Google properties including Google Places, Google Maps, and Google Maps for mobile.”

The more customized My Places tab actually replaces the My Maps tab. To use it, you’ll have to sign into a Google account, first. This feature is part of some of the most admired local search features being introduced by Google. Addition of descriptive phrases to local searches was also a part of this initiative where Google wanted to help people to know what those places are actually known for.

Moving a step further Google also launched icons on the front page of Google for Mobile, which provide shortcuts to nearby places by category. There are icons for restaurants, coffee, and bars. If you go to “more” you can access things like shopping, ATMs, gas stations, etc. So this is a complete tourist kit from Google, where you won’t have to pop your head out of your vehicle and yell, “which road leads to nearest gas station.”