Photo: Bogdan Popa/autoevolution
Google Maps is indeed the world’s most popular mobile navigation app, but this isn’t by any means a guarantee that everything always works properly.
And in the last couple of months, the number of bugs hitting Google Maps has increased substantially. Unfortunately, some of these problems are left without a fix, giving users no other option than to start considering a potential switch to another navigation app.
This is precisely what seems to be happening as we speak on iPhones.
Spotted in mid-November, a new glitch hitting Apple devices breaks down one of the most popular capabilities bundled with Google Maps.
iPhone owners discovered that sharing their trip progress on their devices no longer works, no matter what option they choose for sending the information to contacts. In other words, regardless of the method they want to use – WhatsApp, Telegram, Line, or even copying the link directly – Google Maps seems to ignore the request, therefore making it impossible to let others track your journey.
At first glance, this problem has something to do with the most recent iOS version released by Apple. Shipped in December, iOS 16 is the biggest iPhone operating system update of the year, and it obviously comes with lots of major improvements, especially on the iPhone 14 series.
But as it turns out, it also breaks down the sharing feature integrated into Google Maps, though it’s not very clear why this is happening. Google Maps users, however, claim this started happening after updating their iPhones, though it’s not yet clear if the one to blame is indeed the new operating system version, an updated app build, or both.
Unfortunately, no workaround seems to exist, especially because on iPhone, downgrading to an earlier version of Google Maps isn’t possible with a previously created backup. But on the other hand, it looks like all iPhone models running the latest iOS version are affected, so it’s not an issue limited to just the latest-generation devices.
Someone says on Google’s forums that they even tried to reset their iPhone completely, but this didn’t produce any improvement. Google and Apple, therefore, seem to be the ones that should step in and help users, especially because sharing the trip progress in Google Maps is one of the key features for so many people out there.
In the meantime, without a workaround that brings things back to normal, switching to Waze seems to be more and more tempting for many users. Sharing the trip progress is also possible in Waze, and of course, everything is working properly this time.
For now, Google is yet to acknowledge that it’s at least investigating the Google Maps glitch, so you’d better not hold your breath for a fix.
This is precisely what seems to be happening as we speak on iPhones.
Spotted in mid-November, a new glitch hitting Apple devices breaks down one of the most popular capabilities bundled with Google Maps.
iPhone owners discovered that sharing their trip progress on their devices no longer works, no matter what option they choose for sending the information to contacts. In other words, regardless of the method they want to use – WhatsApp, Telegram, Line, or even copying the link directly – Google Maps seems to ignore the request, therefore making it impossible to let others track your journey.
At first glance, this problem has something to do with the most recent iOS version released by Apple. Shipped in December, iOS 16 is the biggest iPhone operating system update of the year, and it obviously comes with lots of major improvements, especially on the iPhone 14 series.
But as it turns out, it also breaks down the sharing feature integrated into Google Maps, though it’s not very clear why this is happening. Google Maps users, however, claim this started happening after updating their iPhones, though it’s not yet clear if the one to blame is indeed the new operating system version, an updated app build, or both.
Unfortunately, no workaround seems to exist, especially because on iPhone, downgrading to an earlier version of Google Maps isn’t possible with a previously created backup. But on the other hand, it looks like all iPhone models running the latest iOS version are affected, so it’s not an issue limited to just the latest-generation devices.
Someone says on Google’s forums that they even tried to reset their iPhone completely, but this didn’t produce any improvement. Google and Apple, therefore, seem to be the ones that should step in and help users, especially because sharing the trip progress in Google Maps is one of the key features for so many people out there.
In the meantime, without a workaround that brings things back to normal, switching to Waze seems to be more and more tempting for many users. Sharing the trip progress is also possible in Waze, and of course, everything is working properly this time.
For now, Google is yet to acknowledge that it’s at least investigating the Google Maps glitch, so you’d better not hold your breath for a fix.
Google News