With the Windows 10 Mobile updgrade, users have been asking the question, "Where is Local Scout?", that handy little search feature made famous by Ben "The PC Guy" Rudolph. With the introductiion of Cortana to WP 8.1, "Local Scout" retreated to an icon on the Maps view. Now, in Win10 Mobile, "Local Scout" as an integrated one tap icon in Maps is gone. It is no longer even an app. But don't sweat. It's heart remains. Think of "Nearby" instead.
"Nearby" is your new friend
"Nearby" appears as a section on every Maps search results view you do (whether for a category or street address), and it contains the essential features of "Local scout" plus more. So to do a "local scout" style search of "nearby" stuff try this.
Fire up the Maps app and tap the "Search " field. You can either tap the microphone icon just above the keyboard and speak your search request or otherwise type it.
Search for "My location"
Maps brings up its search results view showing your location on the map plus a section beneath with a link for Directions and a new section called "Nearby". Here you'll see the nearby choices common to the old "Local scout" plus a couple of new ones. In addition to "Eat & drink", "See & do", and "Shop" you now have "Hotels", "Banks" and "Parking".
Tap one of these and you'll get the local scout view of nearby relevant venues, only these are listed in relation to the screen view you were on when you tapped the "Nearby" option. So if you tap "Eat & drink" from a "My location" search result view, you'll get a list of places to eat or drink at that are nearby to your current location, as per the old local scout.
To save yourself typing in "My location" every time, you can make it two taps to get to "Nearby" by pinning "my location" to the Start screen. Search for "my location" and hit the "Pin" icon to pin this search to the start screen as a tile.
Now from the start screen, all you do is tap the pinned "My location" tile and Maps opens to the last pinned current location. Then tap the "location finder" in the right of the Maps view, and your viewing your current location with the "Nearby" options ready for you to do your "local scouting".
Enjoy!
But there's more
As "Nearby" appears on every Maps search view of a specific place or venue, you could plan a day out by first finding a venue to visit that is nearby to your current location, then do a "Nearby" search from that individual venue's Maps search result view to find the next venue you want to visit that was nearby to the last one.
So for example, let's say I want to find nearby 5 star restaurants to eat at then some place to go and see once I'm done eating.
Here's what I can do.
Open up Maps and search for (speak or type) "5 star restaurants"
Maps brings up a list of 5 star restaurants in a view like the old "local scout" - map with numbered dots, corresponding to the places listed below the maps, ordered from nearest to furthest.
Tap a dot on the map or a place in the list beneath it, and you'll be given a detailed information view which combines the essential features of "local scout".
You have links for Directions or to Call the venue (hot linked phone number), just like the old local scout.
Just below these links are the "pin", "share", and "favourites" icons plus an additional "print" icon, which will print this view directly from the app.
For Reviews (the old "buzz" local scout view), these appear under the "Latest reviews" section on this view. Just scroll down past the "Nearby" section to read them.
Now from the view of this restaurant, under "Nearby" I tap "See & do" to find a place to visit after I eat that is not too far from the restaurant.
Tap on one of these venues to see or do things at, and I'm given the detailed Map results view for that venue, with the same "Nearby" options as before.
Now, from this screen, tap "Parking" to find nearby parking lots from that same "See & do" venue.
Once you're ready to head off, tap back to your "Eat & drink" venue, tap "Directions", and Maps opens up its navigation feature, including a list various possible routes to take with distance and times for each.
Tap your preferred route, hit, "Go" and enjoy your day out.
Cortana as a Local Scout
The same search engine that powered "Local Scout" and now "Nearby" is also the search engine at the heart of Cortana.
To see her in action as a "local scout", open up Cortana and say
"Find nearby [whatever it is you're looking for]"
So a request to Cortana like
"Find nearby pizza"
will return a list of Pizza stores.
(All this information is pulled from the same sources the old "Local scout" used, such as Yellow Pages, TripAdvisor, Yelp, Foursquare, etc)
Tap one of these for a detailed view of the venue.
You don't get the "Nearby" options as hotlinks in the results view Cortana returns. But you can get "Directions" or if listed, a link to the venue's "Website".
Tap the website link to place your order.
Try either of these requests:
"Find nearby 4 star motels"
"Find nearby restuarants and cafes"
"find nearby bookstores"
and away Cortana goes. All the results she returns are in relation to your actual location.
Of course you can always fire up the Maps app for one of these specific searches, like "pizza". Doing so, you'll get the familiar Maps search results view, with "Nearby" options.
So in "Nearby", the heart of "local scout" is still there, and a bit more besides.
Enjoy!