In this week’s iPhone tips, we discuss five useful Google Maps features that you probably don’t know about yet!
5x useful tips for Google Maps
Google Maps may not look as nice since the last update, but in terms of functionality it is still a top app. In this week’s iPhone tips, we’ll show you some useful features you probably don’t know about yet. Try them out right away!
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1. Add your music player to Google Maps
The first of these iPhone tips is for anyone who regularly navigates via Google Maps and listens to music at the same time with the same iPhone. We don’t have to tell you that this is not ideal. Unless you add your music player to Google Maps. You will never have to switch apps while driving again! Setup goes like this:
- Open Google Maps and tap your profile photo at the top right;
- Tap ‘Settings’ and then ‘Navigation’;
- Now tap on ‘Music Playing App’;
- Select your music player and tap ‘Open’.
You can choose from Apple Music or Spotify. Once you have set up your player and you start navigating, you will see the control buttons of your music player at the bottom of the screen. You can easily switch on other music via the ‘Browse’ button.
2. Automatically remember your parking spot
Number two of our iPhone tips is for anyone who regularly forgets where their car was parked. It is useful for those people if Google Maps remembers where your car is. You may already know that you can indicate the parking space manually in the app, but it is also possible to do this automatically from now on.
You can easily set it manually by tapping on the blue dot (which indicates your location). Then choose the ‘Save parking space’ option. To set this up automatically in future, proceed as follows:
- In Google Maps, tap your profile photo at the top right;
- Tap ‘Settings’ and then ‘Navigation’;
- Scroll down and enable ‘Save parking spot’.
In order to automatically save the parking space from now on, it is logically necessary that you always give Google Maps access to your location. If you don’t want that, you could also choose to put an AirTag in your car (or one of the many cheaper alternatives).
3. Navigate while running via Live View
There are quite a few people who have difficulty navigating on foot with Google Maps. Once you understand how it works, it goes well, but it remains quite confusing. If you are one of those people who just can’t get used to it, then number three of our iPhone tips is for you. Next time try it via Live View. This is how you do it:
- Search for your destination in Google Maps and tap ‘Route’;
- Make sure the navigation is set to ‘on foot’;
- Tap ‘Live View’ at the bottom of the screen.
To make it work, Google Maps needs permission to use your iPhone’s camera. Then point your iPhone at some buildings around you so that the app recognizes the environment. An arrow will then appear on the screen indicating which direction you should go. By the way, this not only works outside, but also in large buildings such as Schiphol.
4. Change the blue arrow into a car
Ok, number four of this week’s iPhone tips isn’t exactly a useful feature. Above all, he’s fun. In addition to the standard blue arrow that you see while navigating, you can also choose from three different vehicle icons. While navigating, simply tap that blue arrow and then tap the vehicle icon of your choice.
5. Get notified when a friend has arrived
We conclude these iPhone tips with a tip that is useful when you have an appointment with someone somewhere. It is quite useful if you receive a notification when the person has arrived. That saves a lot of texting back and forth. You can easily set this up. The condition is that that friend shares his location with you. It goes like this:
- Open Google Maps and tap your profile photo at the top right.
- Tap Share Location, then tap the friend’s profile.
- In the ‘Notifications’ section, tap ‘Add’.
- Tap ‘Add Location’, enter the location and tap ‘Done’.
- Indicate when you want to receive a notification and tap Save.
You can also choose to receive a notification when that friend has left the location.
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