• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Help Save GPS Locations?

Upvote 0
I've tried the Voice Search "Navigate to <contact>" and it hasn't worked for me. Maybe it just isn't understanding me or something.

On inspection, navigate to contact isn't supported. It might work if your contact is a business or person that Google finds in its listings, but it isn't pulling from your contact list in that case.

FYI, the supported voice commands are:

Say &#8220;Call,&#8221; followed by a name from your contacts, followed by the kind of
phone number (&#8220;mobile,&#8221; &#8220;work,&#8221; and so on)&#8212;for example, &#8220;Call Mike home.&#8221; If there is a single match, the number is dialed automatically.

Say &#8220;Directions to,&#8221; followed by an address, name, business name, type of business, or other destination, to get directions to that location from Google Maps.

Say &#8220;Navigate to,&#8221; followed by an address, name, business name, type of business, or other destination to get spoken, turn-by-turn directions to that destination.

Say &#8220;Map of,&#8221; followed by an address, name, business name, type of business, or other location, to view that location on Google Maps.
 
Upvote 0
For any location on Google Maps, click the bubble on the map. In the resulting "information" screen, press the star (top right corner). Easy peasy.
If you've gotten directions to a place, clicked show on map, then click the bubble on the map, it will take you back to the directions page instead of the info page. Go back to the map, press menu, then Search instead of directions. Now when you click on the bubble you'll get the page with info and the star (it's greyed out, hard to see, in the upper right).

I just took a couple of places out of my contacts and added them to the star list. You can apparently also star things on google maps on your computer and they'll automatically show up in your star list on the phone. I haven't tried this tho.
 
Upvote 0
You can apparently also star things on google maps on your computer and they'll automatically show up in your star list on the phone. I haven't tried this tho.

Yes your starred locations sync automatically. On the computer, you can also edit the marker, change the listing name etc. A starred location is just like a bookmark ... except for Maps.
 
Upvote 0
still two problems with this

a) cannot say "Navigate to " and the name of the bookmark
b) you have to go to google.com/bookmarks to rename the bookmarks

However it is nice now to be able to just go to starred locations and see it by some understandable name, I would think there has to be a feature request in to allow voice search to search these "google bookmarks" and to be able to rename them from the phone, that would make it perfect, although it is free, so I don't mind the current workarounds!
 
  • Like
Reactions: Squintz82
Upvote 0
still two problems with this

a) cannot say "Navigate to " and the name of the bookmark
b) you have to go to google.com/bookmarks to rename the bookmarks

However it is nice now to be able to just go to starred locations and see it by some understandable name, I would think there has to be a feature request in to allow voice search to search these "google bookmarks" and to be able to rename them from the phone, that would make it perfect, although it is free, so I don't mind the current workarounds!

Thanks for the tip!

I actually added google.com/bookmarks as a bookmark in my browser, so I can organize them from my phone. However this doesn't do much in relation to Google Maps. The starred items still show up as "addresses" in Maps instead of the names I gave them in google.com/bookmarks.
 
Upvote 0
Here's what I do, I use maps on my phone:

1. scroll to some particular location
2. long press and it brings up a little bubble with the "street address"
3. click the star in the right hand corner of the phone
4. open up google bookmarks on my pc (or refresh if it's already open) and I see the new location show up there
5. to the right of the street address I see an edit button and click it
6. change the name and hit save
7. go back into maps on my phone and click the star and it has the new name

now when I go into navigation I click the bookmark icon to the right of the end point and I am able to see them named there as well

PS. I just tried editing them from my phone on google.com/bookmarks and i for the love of god cannot press the edit button....
 
Upvote 0

BEST TECH IN 2023

We've been tracking upcoming products and ranking the best tech since 2007. Thanks for trusting our opinion: we get rewarded through affiliate links that earn us a commission and we invite you to learn more about us.

Smartphones