Google Maps for Android drops direction arrow in favor of a blue beam

According to Google, the beam is capable of telling users how accurate the phone's direction is at any given time. Supposedly, the narrower the beam, the more accurate the direction, while the wide the beam, the more likely it is that the phone's compass is temporarily uncalibrated, so the sensors might not work as intended.

But fret not, since there's an easy way to fix this issue. The solution recommended by Google is to move your phone in a figure 8 motion a few times. That's how you should get more accurate results when trying to pinpoint to a direction.

The solution provided by Google to calibrate the compass' sensors is likely to work better than the usual tilt method. However, that requires users to master the curving motion in order to get the best results.