Maps app won't zoom in on lat/long -- goes to nearest address

[bennetthaselton]

There seems to be a bug in the Android Maps application where if you search for a given latitude/longitude, Maps pinpoints the closest *street address* that it can figure out, and zooms in on that, instead of the actual lat/long you requested.

For example if you go to Google Maps and search for N 47 38.459 W 122 08.891, a map comes up with two locations pinpointed on it: a downward-pointing green arrow indicating the latitude/longitude that you searched for, and one of those maroon mini-hot-air-balloon icons marked "A", pinpointing the nearest street address (in this case, NE 33rd Ct.). Nothing buggy about this.

But, if you open the Maps application on Android, click the Search textfield, and enter N 47 38.459 W 122 08.891 as the location to search for, it "corrects" this to NE 33rd Ct., and *that* is the location it marks and zooms in on -- not the actual latitude/longitude you specified. (While this may sometimes be desirable behavior, I think that *most* of the time, if you enter a latitude/longitude, you'd want that exact lat/long marked on the map. If someone wanted to direct you to a street address, they would have given you the street address.)

Is there a workaround for this, a way to get Maps for Android to zoom in on the correct lat/long that I enter?

p.s. how do you get an Android phone to tell you its current latitude/longitude, assuming satellite GPS is enabled?

 

[takeshi]

Is there a workaround for this, a way to get Maps for Android to zoom in on the correct lat/long that I enter?

AFAIK it's how Google intended the app to work. I haven't found a way to force it. You might want to look into alternate apps for mapping lat/lon.

p.s. how do you get an Android phone to tell you its current latitude/longitude, assuming satellite GPS is enabled?

Use an app that pulls that info from the GPS receiver. GPS Status is one option and it's also handy for resetting aGPS data/state if your receiver is having problems getting a fix.

 

[bennetthaselton]

I found a workaround, if you enter the coordinates as:

loc: N 47 38.459 W 122 08.891
cache@N 47 38.459 W 122 08.891
N 47 38.459 W 122 08.891 (cache)

then it will zoom in on your coordinates instead of the nearest street address. Someone told me on a geocaching forum:
geogaching with Android Maps - bug on lat/long pinpointing? - Groundspeak Forums
which is after all what I was using it for.

That's strange that it would require a third-party application to tell you what the current latitude and longitude of the phone is, since the phone is constantly aware of it. It seems like having to download a third-party application to get Windows to tell you how much disk space is left on your hard drive

Bennett