According to Google Maps users on Twitter and Reddit, a mysterious male voice can be heard coming from the app. The voice is deep and has an Indian accent. One Reddit user with the handle u/couverando1984 explains what happened to him. “Hi. I use the English voice and it’s normally a woman’s voice. On my trip home today it was mostly the woman voice, then suddenly for one instruction it talked in what sounded like a deep man’s voice with a slight Indian accent. Has anyone had this? Sounds crazy.”
The strange voice has been heard on both iOS and Android phones and based on the number of posts on Reddit and Twitter, quite a few Google Maps users have experienced this and have been creeped out. The official Google Maps Twitter account tweeted, “Hi there, we apologizes(sic) for your experience. The team is working on a fix and it will be rolled out soon. Thank you for your patience.”
Google says that a fix to silence the voice will soon arrive
Besides being heard on both major smartphone platforms, the unembodied voice has startled Google Maps users in several English-speaking countries. We haven’t heard of anyone contacting an exorcist yet, but if you start hearing a strange voice giving you turn-by-turn directions while using the app, be careful. It could be from a malicious soul ready to guide you into a ditch or give you incorrect directions and get you lost.
Perhaps even worse than getting you lost is the embarrassment that this can create. Consider this tweet from Twitter user Kamran Fotovat. “This was very awkward when I picked up my date for the first time. (She was Indian).” Most of the messages about this on social media went along the lines of this Reddit post: “Same here. Man with Indian accent. It started with alternating between the usual female voice and the Indian male voice, then just went full Indian after a few minutes.”
If you’re an iPhone user, this might be a good time to forget the past and give Apple Maps a shot. Since Apple has redesigned Maps, it has become a very useful tool that some might find easier to navigate with than Google Maps. To be honest, we recently found a couple of errors on Apple Maps which mislabeled a highway as “North” when it was “South” (Google Maps had it right) but the app still showed the correct turn to make.
Is your Google Maps app haunted? Let us know your experience with the ghost of Google Maps.
