Does my DROID/Google map know when it's night time?

[DJTURNz]

Maybe I am just late to the party, or this isn't what I think it is, but something happened last night that I have never seen (or noticed) before.
I was using my DROID to navigate to an unfamiliar address. It was about 7:45pm, so it was at that point when it's dark out, but the sky seems kind of lit. Anyway, the screen was a little bright, and since I keep the dock just to the right of my view above the dash, it was a little distracting.

Then suddenly it changed.

Usually the Arrow that is me is blue, the road is yellow (I think) and the stuff that isn't a road (not usuing satalite view) is white. Suddenly the area around me was black, and mt blue arrow had a white glow in front of it, almost like my truck with headlights. It was weird and cool at the same time. I can't imagine that I never navigated at night before, but I never noticed this.

 

[atlharry]

night-mode navigation was new for Google Maps 4.0

 

[LtKen]

My Garmin does the same thing. I dont know if it's a function of internal sensors, or a guess as to when sunset is.... I would suspect the Garmin uses sensors since it's not web enabled, as for the Droid, who knows.

 

[baniels]

It uses your location to determine the sunset time.

 

[DJTURNz]

So it is new. Cool, I like it.

 

[dezymond]

been that way for about a month? if you downloaded the update that is.

haven't had a chance to use it in night mode yet though, about time they did have that feature though, so many times i used my gps at night and it was almost blinding.

 

[Shadez]

Will have to check this out tonight

 

[Myth]

Has anyone else noticed that Google Maps (especially with the Satellite on) got really slow after that last update?

Or is it just me?

The maps take forever to come in now

 

[Brokn68]

My Garmin does the same thing. I dont know if it's a function of internal sensors, or a guess as to when sunset is.... I would suspect the Garmin uses sensors since it's not web enabled, as for the Droid, who knows.

I thought it got time from the satellites? I'm not sure but my hand held 60csx does the same thing, but there is an option in settings to turn it off and go standard display all the time.

 

[JoeKacz]

Anyone know if there's a way to enable the night mode for maps instead of just navigation? If I'm driving at night and not using the navigation mode, but rather just maps, it's still bright as heck. Do we know if this is expected in a future update?