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GPS Coordinate Apps: Find Your GPS Location

GPS Coordinate Apps

GPS Coordinate Apps: Find Your GPS Location

If you want to find the latitude and longitude of anywhere with your mobile phone, this list of GPS coordinate apps will help you get started.

Because you may not know already, some of the common apps that you have installed can already be the GPS location app you need.

Fortunately, it’s easier than you think to find any pair of coordinate locations with some of the most trusted apps that you use every day.

Let’s take a look at the most popular GPS coordinate apps.

1. Google Maps

GPS Coordinate Apps Google Maps

For Android users, Google Maps is the simplest way to either enter latitude and longitude coordinates or to find out your current coordinates.

If you want to find your current coordinates, zoom into your location and hold down on the touchpad screen in the map. Afterward, your latitude and longitude will pop up in the search bar for you to copy.

In reverse, you can just type in your GPS coordinates in the search bar. Once you enter both latitude and longitude, Google Maps will take you to the pair of coordinates that you typed in.

READ MORE: 10 GPS Apps For Navigation [Android and iOS]

2. Apple Maps

GPS Coordinate Apps Apple Maps

Apple has really been stepping up its game with its mapping platform, Apple Maps. One feature that Apple Maps had included directly into their product is the capability to use it as a GPS location finder.

For iOS users, Apple Maps is the easiest option because it’s already installed with an iPhone. Similar to Google Maps, hold down on the map and a pop-up text box will show you additional information about the feature with coordinates.

If you simply want to find a location by typing in a pair of coordinates, you can enter it into the search bar in Apple Maps. This will take you to the lat/long coordinates anywhere in the world.

3. What3Words

What3Words Mobile

Why use coordinates at all? Depending on your situation, What3Words is a different type of addressing system to help you never get lost again.

Because What3Words slices up the entire world in 10-foot squares, you can uniquely identify any square with just three words. It’s a unique concept and alternative to traditional addresses and storing lat/long coordinates.

This is ideal for saving locations to meet, remembering your parking space, or finding emergency services. Similar to Google Maps or Apple Maps, the app and addressing system is available for free.

Summary: GPS Coordinate Apps

When you need a GPS coordinate app, you most likely can already do it with an app you have already installed.

Both Google and Apple Maps make great GPS location finder apps through their search bar. Alternatively, you can also obtain any location’s latitude and longitude by holding your finger down on the map.

Although What3Words is not a true GPS location app, it still has great value for specific purposes such as remembering locations.

We’ve given you options to locate your position with some of the most popular GPS location apps. It’s time to turn it over to you. What are your favorite GPS coordinate apps? Please let us know with a comment below.

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9 Comments

  1. I type coordinates in decimal format in Google maps, and it says not found. Apple maps on my friend’s iPhone brings it up, no problem. what gives, Google maps???

    1. One way to do this is by using Google Earth. Try adding a placemark to your view. Once you do, there will be a pop-up of the lat/long coordinates. You can move it around and it will update the coordinates where you drag and drop the pin.

  2. This is some good info. Unfortunately, method #1 doesn’t work for me. Pressing/holding on the map does indeed show the coordinates but the moment you touch that field, the coordinates become an address. So, it is impossible to copy the coordinates to the clipboard so that you can do something else useful with them.

  3. Depends on your needed level of mapping accuracy, and the specific app’s ability to support proper geomatics and geographic datums. [GPS/GNSS technology itself works in global systems like WGS84. Most folks want to use x, y coordinates in a local projected map system (like UTM or State Plane coordinates in the USA). Keeping everything in Geographic coordinates in a global datum via any app is simpler to write – but does often not meet full user needs. Any ‘favorite’ app needs to keep true user needs requirements in mind.]
    It can be thought of much like photography: a point-and-shoot fixed focus disposable camera and a professional high-end SRL camera can both take perfectly fine pictures — but do not truly offer the same output. Users want/need the ‘right tool for the right job’ and professional GNSS apps deliver much more than general ‘consumer’ ones do. A true understanding of the mathematical concepts (as written about in your Articles on Geodesy and Coordinate References Systems) must be coded correctly into any reliable GPS Coordinate App. Professional GNSS hardware suppliers worldwide can help anyone needing true high-accuracy GPS locations via state-of-the-practice workflows and apps. (Consumer device GPS navigation is inherently limited in its accuracy and precision.)

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