Getaways

Getaways is one screen now - and the drive that ends every getaway finally has a guide who says hello, picks you up, and talks the whole way there. ONE SURFACE Tabs are gone. Trips you're planning, invites waiting on your answer, and ready-made drives near you are all the same card, wearing whatever state it's in - "3 of 5 voted," "your narrator is reading up on Oakhurst," "18 stories await." One + button starts the next: paste a stay, pick an idea, join with a code, or just drive. STORY, OR ROUTE The narrated drive has a stage with two places and a named door between them. Story: full-screen artwork that changes with every telling, a real scrubber, skip forward and back, the up-next queue, and the transcript when you'd rather read. Route: the living map - where you are, the road filling in behind you, and the stories ahead as markers you can tap to hear now. One tap moves between them and nothing stops playing. THE CONCIERGE Press start and someone is there. "This is Livermore Wine Country - 14 stories along the way." If the road begins across town, the guide says so and promises to collect you - "we'll start about ten minutes north of here; I'll pick you up there" - then hands off the moment you arrive: "Here we are - first story coming up in half a mile." A soft chime rings before each story. Parked right on the first stop? It simply begins. BEFORE YOU GO Every drive now opens on a page of its own: how long, how far, how many stories, the road drawn on a map, the stops laid out, and what to know before you leave. Then one button - and a drive you can end from the bar, with an x or a swipe. DRIVES THAT START AT YOUR DOORSTEP Near me means near you. Three ideas at three real distances, ranked and timed from where you're actually standing - an evening in Dublin gets Pleasanton, not somebody else's downtown. Three new East Bay drives to prove it: Livermore Wine Country, Niles Canyon & Sunol, and Mount Diablo Summit Road. MORE BAY, AND A SEARCH THAT NEVER DEAD-ENDS 78 new Bay Area destinations. One search field over drives, ideas, and everywhere else - type a mood, a town, a park, and if we haven't written your road yet, the last row still offers it. ONE SCHEDULE, AND A PLANNER THAT LISTENS Every trip keeps a shared schedule, grouped by day: add dinner, a show, a hike, or attach a narrated drive to the morning you'll take it, and it lands on everyone's phone. Or type the weekend the way you'd text it - "Friday: Omnia at 11. Sphere show Sunday at 7" - and the planner hands back a proposal, every change its own row with its reason. Keep it all, drop a row, or answer the one question it asks. Nothing reaches the group until you say yes. SIGN IN ONCE Apple, Google, email, or your phone number - one tap at first launch, no passwords anywhere. Your getaways follow you to a new phone and survive a reinstall. Friends you invite still vote from the web with no account and no install. Plus steadier drives throughout: stories authored a little off the road are heard instead of skipped, the Lock Screen counts down to the first one, and a car parked on the starting line no longer waits in silence. Thanks for driving with us. Questions or ideas? We're listening.