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The Magic Blue Dot That Makes Google Maps the Best Navigation App on Earth

Like any other navigation app out there, Google Maps needs your location to do its magic. In other words, it must know precisely where you are because otherwise, its entire navigation feature arsenal becomes completely useless.
Google Maps blue dot 7 photos
Photo: Google
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Once it figures out your location, Google Maps can accurately find a route towards the address that you manually define and then offer additional information as you get closer to the destination.

While Google Maps itself is a highly complex application, one of the essential features that must always work properly is a small blue dot. As awkward as that may sound for some people, the blue dot is a little feature that tells a lot about how the app works and whether it’s capable of tracking your location or not.

We already discussed the basic purpose of the blue dot last year in a lengthier Google Maps article, so now let’s see how it works and why it is so important for navigation capabilities.

First and foremost, the blue dot is supposed to show your precise location on the map. In other words, this is exactly what you’ll be seeing after launching Google Maps and granting all permissions to the app.

Google Maps blue dot
Photo: Google
That’s specifically the purpose of the blue dot in the first place. Once Google Maps is able to determine where you are, the blue dot shows up and marks your location on the map. The blue dot comes alongside another indicator to also display your orientation, and you can simply turn around with your phone in hand and Google Maps running on the screen to make sure it’s working properly.

If it does, then both Google Maps and your phone’s sensors are properly calibrated, which means the application should now be able to determine your location and provide accurate navigation.

On the other hand, there are moments when sometimes it is broken down, and the blue dot doesn’t show up. If this happens to you, then in 99 percent of the cases, Google Maps simply isn’t allowed to access your location. Open your phone’s settings and make sure the location permissions are enabled for Google Maps.

In the other 1 percent of the cases, Google Maps can’t access your location because of other external factors, such as thick walls or tall buildings around you. Most often than not, the blue dot turns gray specifically to indicate something went wrong when Google Maps tried to figure out where you are.

Google Maps blue dot
Photo: Google
If there’s no GPS signal and the blue dot can’t do its magic, Google Maps automatically refreshes and displays the last known location. Nevertheless, once the application is again able to determine your location, it refreshes the map once again to bring back the blue dot according to where you are at any given moment.

Every once in a while, you may notice that the blue dot comes with a thin, light blue circle around it. This is an indicator that Google Maps was able to figure out where you are, only that it couldn’t do it with the maximum accuracy. In other words, the app did pinpoint you on the map, but the location might not be 100 percent accurate. More often than not, your current location should be someone within the light blue circle, so give Google Maps a few more seconds until it manages to refresh and precisely determine where you are.

Needless to say, the larger the light blue circle, the bigger the chance for the location to be inaccurate, but once again, this only happens when Google Maps can’t accurately tell where you are when using the app.

The blue dot moves with you when Google Maps is running on the mobile device, and if the aforementioned struggles aren’t encountered, it should always indicate your location precisely. If it doesn’t, then make sure the location access is properly configured and nothing blocks your mobile phone’s connection to a cell tower.
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About the author: Bogdan Popa
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Bogdan keeps an eye on how technology is taking over the car world. His long-term goals are buying an 18-wheeler because he needs more space for his kid’s toys, and convincing Google and Apple that Android Auto and CarPlay deserve at least as much attention as their phones.
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