Friday, November 28, 2014

First-Person View in Google Maps Navigation

Whitson Gordon:

It’s very simple: just tap the compass icon in the corner! This should switch you to the first-person navigation view that, in most cases, is much easier to use (especially while you’re driving). If you prefer the map view in any scenario, you can just tap the compass icon again to go back.

After the recent update, Google Maps stopped showing me the first-person view, and so I thought Google had simply gotten rid of it. It’s great to be able to get it back.

Before I had a chance to search for how to do this, I gave Apple Maps a try for two trips. It’s nice to be able to control it hands-free via Siri. However, it almost led us astray, suddenly suggesting a U-turn and an 8-mile drive to a completely different location just when our destination was in sight. On another trip, the map stopped updating for a minute or two, just as we started navigating through an unfamiliar city center. That had never happened with Google Maps. It was also off by a block with the location of the restaurant, which again Google had exactly right.

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