Gadgetory

hey guys it's joe from pocketnow.com with another android quick tip this time having to do with Google Maps let's go take a look okay so this is the Samsung Epic 4G and I'm showing you a Google Maps version 5 and I don't know how long this feature has been inside Google Maps so if you know please let us know in the comments below but let's just get a quick overview so you can kind of pan around here you can see where I am you can see you know where's the freeway the other side that the foothills you know the mountains and whatnot over there so it's great well if you look over here you've got this little where am I icon for lack of a better word you tap on that and just like that it shows you exactly where you want are in the map so doesn't matter where you've gone where you've navigated off to let you know right there right where you are but now if you notice it's changed to a compass rose and this is something that I didn't know before so the compass rose now shows you you know this is just your kind of fixed right here North is up just like on any map but when in this mode if you touch it again immediately you get this little on-screen compass it tilts the display down into kind of a 3d mode and the compass rose is now off kilter now what do I mean by that it's not north is up anymore in fact if you take a look based on the digital compass inside your phone it's going to orient north to north now is that helpful well in this view probably not that much but if I'm walking or if I'm driving it's really nice if the way that I'm heading is the way that I'm heading and North really doesn't matter because I'm just interested in my next turn right left turn around you know whatever it may be now to go back very simply just touch it again to get the old behavior just scroll it off to the side and it's back to the return to home just really fast so really kind of cool something you may not have known before so with today's Android quick tip I'm Joe for pocketnow.com