Google adds new features to its mobile apps all the time, but sometimes, they remove the ones they don’t think are up to the challenge. We never know what’s behind these decisions, but we can definitely say that some features don’t deserve to be removed.
That didn’t seem to interest Google’s Maps team when they decided to remove a very useful feature from the Android app, the compass widget. Last month, developers revealed many of the improvements that the Maps app will receive in the coming weeks but left one out from the initial announcement.
Long story short, Google announced today that after removing the compass from Maps for Android in early 2019 “in an effort to clean up the Navigation screen,” it decided to bring it back after receiving overwhelming feedback in its favor.
The compass will show you which direction is north via a red arrow. Just like it was implemented two years ago, the widget will be positioned on the right side of the screen. The “new” compass widget is now rolling out to all Google Maps for Android users globally, so as long as you have version 10.62 (or higher) installed, you should be able to use it.