Google Trips App Is Going Down In August

Google is ready to add yet another body to its graveyard. Fortunately, this time it's just a mobile app. Last month, Google proudly announced an update to its Google Trips feature that takes the pain out of planning your next getaway. It seems almost ironic, then, but totally not unexpected that it will be shutting down the Android version of that feature soon. Soon, in this case, is August 5 this year.

Unless you're a frequent traveler, you might not even know Google Trips exists except through news like "Google is killing the Google Trips app". If you do find yourself always booking flights or looking for restaurants in unfamiliar territory, you probably wonder how you've survived without it. Actually, you may have survived on separate Google services but Google Trips, fortunately, put them all under one roof last year.

This year, Google Trips upgraded the planning experience on web browsers, letting users lay out all the details on a screen larger than their smartphones. It integrated better with Google Search so that any research you make will automatically be added to Google Trips. Confirmation emails you receive in Gmail are also helpfully pulled into your itinerary.

With that much focus on the web experience, it's no surprise that Google has decided to sunset the dedicated mobile one. You can keep on using the Google Trips app until August 5, 2019 but, after that, you will find your travel fix on the web directly.

This move does reflect a strategy that Google employs in de-emphasizing mobile apps in favor of web or Search experiences. Each iteration of Android introduces more ways to access data and services right from Search without even opening an app. It shouldn't be long before other similar Google apps get the boot in favor of a richer Web experience.