William Gallagher
Half a decade after it introduced the features on Android, Google now plans to add both a speedometer and speed limits detail to its Google Maps on iOS.
Taking an accurate measurement of a car's speed is surprisingly hard, but the vehicle's own speedometer is always going to be more accurate than a mapping app. Plus the iPhone already has speed limit warnings in Apple Maps.
Nonetheless, Google is planning to roll out the feature to Google Maps globally. As spotted by TechCrunch, the company is currently testing the feature in India. Google has subsequently confirmed that the speedometer will be available to all users on iPhone, though it did not give a timescale.
Google's current support page only mentions Android. It also, though, stresses that the speedometer figure is "for informational use only."
"Make sure to use your vehicle's speedometer to confirm your actual driving speed," it continues.
All of which makes this sound pretty pointless, but possibly the key word is pretty. For unlike a regular speedometer, the one displayed on a Google Maps screen will reportedly change color if the driver goes over the speed limit.
While the speedometer is seemingly intended to roll out worldwide, the seemingly more useful speed limits feature may not, however. Google's support page for Android refers to options "if the speed limits feature is available in your location."
It seems unlikely that Google would bring speed limits to all iPhone users before bringing it to all Android ones. For its part, Apple introduced the speed limit feature to Apple Maps in 2020, and has since been rolling it out to more countries.
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19 Comments
Apple Maps does not have speed limit warnings. It has speed check camera warnings.
I get that it's an obvious feature to add since they can do it, it might be helpful for a full HUD, etc. but I'm going to immediately hide that. I think the use cases for calculating this by bouncing signals off satellites are pretty slim and they're not going to be instant such as any measurements based on the wheels in the car. Right now I run with a GPS watch and it drives me crazy when the instant speed read constantly (every few seconds) recalculates and the speed jumps all over the place if if satellites are obscured by buildings or even trees. It shows as too slow if it can't reach a satellite then compensates and suddenly gets way too fast when it reconnects and discovers I'm further down the course than expected. This just seems like an unnecessary and potentially very risky distraction.
What makes it so hard to calculate speed?
At 30mph (13.4m/s) the current GPS error should be such that it’s more accurate than a car’s speedo which is affected by simple things like tyre pressure and is normally set too low to protect the manufacturer with various country laws whereby a speedometer cannot read high, only low.
OK, unless I read this wrong, I already have the speed limit on my iPhone when using Google Maps in CarPlay.