Saturday, June 20, 2015

iOS 8 Compass.app will let you copy coordinates if you do a long press

During a recent bike adventure I was frustrated that I couldn’t copy coordinates from either Google Map or Apple Map. I think I used to be able to do that - but no more. Compass.app would show coordinates, but I couldn’t copy/paste ‘em. Best I could do was a screenshot of what Compass displays.

There’s a convoluted way to do it …

Messages, Details, Send My Current Location -> gives a tappable link, then get info on location gives apple map URLs with coordinates

The map URL is interesting, but I wanted something better. Once I was home I paid $1 for Nav Clock.app, a primeval iOS app that, among other things, shows coordinates in portrait mode and local sun related events in landscape mode. If you tap your finger carefully (it’s picky) on the start of the coordinates you get a copy option.

Nav Clock is pretty cool and well worth $1, but I still wondered if there wasn’t a secret way to get map coordinates out of Compass.app. Seems something an engineer would sneak in. 

Jeremy W. Sherman figured it out:

Compass does let you copy out the coordinates: Long-press on the coordinates and hit Copy from the floating menu. Don’t tap - that bounces you to Maps.

It’s a non-standard UI — long but not too long press pops up a new string ‘Copy’. Tap ‘Copy’ and you can paste degrees, minutes, seconds N and W.

As best I can tell this has never been documented. It’s a secret…

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