Google maps on Ubuntu touch 20.04

pparent

Hi,

I just wanted to share how I got google maps to work pretty smoothly on Ubuntu touch 20.04 OTA-10 after many month using it in a buggy way.

I use Webber to create the app, but it requires a specific configuration to work it properly.

1°) Select the URL of the app https://maps.google.com

2°) You need to use a custom useragent. I found that uwolf useragent works: "Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Mobile; Ubuntu 20.04 Like Android 9) Firefox/140.0.2-1 ". This is because, the default useragent is recognized as chrome mobile on Android, and therefore google maps always tries to redirect to the real google maps app through intents, and the whole things gets very buggy, and you cannot get directions.

3°) You need to setup the link model to "https?://.google.com/" and possibly the same with the extension of your country (in my case "https?://.google.fr/" in France ). This is because google maps will redirect to domains like "https://consent.google.com" and it needs to be allowed inside the app.

4°) Check "Allow access to position", and "keep screen on" (useful during navigation)

After that it works pretty smoothly. I don't understand why the app in the store does not have these tweaks , it is completly useless to me.

Hope this post can help.

Keneda

@pparent
Just for info, UBports is the foundation that manages Ubuntu Touch, which is the operating system.

wally

@pparent Thanks for showing your work! I mostly get by just fine with Puremaps, but google maps is awfully handy when one needs traffic data. I'll have to try this.

Bit of an aside, but have you had issues with GPS crashing apps, be it Morph, uNav, Puremaps, etc, like in the thread linked below? And if so, any changes with your webapp?
https://forums.ubports.com/topic/8930/20-04-focal-unav-freezes-with-gps-enabled/18

pparent

@wally For now I haven't seen any crash yet with the app configured as such.

But I do see freezes/crashes in Morph browser while using Google maps, therefore I guess the crash/freeze might be more related to Google Maps intents, than the GPS.