Google maps >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> apple maps here in Europe especially for medium sized cities (in big cities apple works fine but still a lot worse then google).
For me it seems like fair exchange to give some data, for free and very good service that have no real competition :)
OpenStreetMap >>>>>>>>> Google maps pretty much everywhere in EU (and RoW). I had better data in Harz, Bohemian Switzerland, Girona, Laos, Indian jungles etc which was way better than what Google provides.
I would rather give my data to the qualitatively better option OSM than a controversial foreign firm that has questionable stance on user privacy.
Really? In my experience (Europe, mostly France/Italy), OpenStreetMap has a lot more details than Google on “long-term features”: roads, (hiking) paths, public toilets and fountains, etc; while Google is a lot better for POIs and restaurants/bars/museums/etc. On a given street, OSM will have the exact position of every tree but not so much about restaurants, while with GM you get their opening hours, ratings, menus, etc. Also, GM has public transports in a lot of cities.
In brand new neighbourhoods, I've also found OSM much better than Google Maps. E.g., lots of new developments in Cambridge were extremely well annotated whereas Google Maps didn't even have streetnames. This is super helpful when you are shopping for a new property.
When I moved into a new neighbourhood, the street name was on neither map. I've updated both. OSM update was fast. Google took several months to update, even though I had provided official documents as requested. The frustrating thing was that most delivery companies had issues during this time. Also, some online shops didn't consider my address valid.
Yes, I've been in the same situation multiple times! UK postcodes are really fine grained. It's great for tracking buildings, but it's a nightmare when companies do not update their databases.
For those who've not been to the UK before, in urban areas a postcode and a house number are enough to identify a property.
It's a rare opportunity when I get to map actual new roads. Usually it's filling in details like a trash bin here, a hedge there... roads are a much more important core feature. If you ever spot an unmapped neighborhood, just let me know! ;)
I spot them pretty often in the suburbs and exurbs of American cities. Those areas tend not to have as many active mappers as urban areas, so new subdivisions sometimes go a while before anyone maps them. Even then the first-cut mapping is usually someone not actually there just tracing from the Bing imagery.
But google maps will get the opening hours bad more often than not due to COVID changes. And frankly, I am fed up with google - I used to help correcting said hours in the earlier contributor model, but will no longer do so since there is no reason to feed data into that monstrosity that doesn’t give back anything in return to society.
Google Maps has unmatched traffic data accuracy, especially here in India where it has literally hundreds of millions of Android devices moving on roads.
Dunno about google maps in Germany (cause of German laws) but in Italy, Czechia, Poland, Slovakia, Austria (all places that i visited in europe and use google maps) i found google maps to be excellent but i didnt use OSM for like last 3 years so cant speak about that :)
* And still OSM was a lot better then Apple maps few years ago.
Ha in the "textova" map there's a LOT of inside jokes and wordplay, here's what some of the actual placenames are, and some of the meanings in case you don't know the language:
- Stovězov (no idea) = Prague. Update: Ahhh could be "city of a hundred spires"
- Bryncl = Brno (in local hantec dialect)
- Malá videň ("Little Vienna") = Šumperk
- Jo, budě vice! (sort of "Yeh, there'll be more!") - České Budějovice which you might know better as Budweis as in "Budweiser". I feel like there's more to this one I'm mising
- Piveň (mixture of "Pivo"=beer and "Plzeň") = Plzeň, you might know as Pilsen as in Pilsner
- Baťovo Hlavní Město ("Baťa's capital city") = Zlín, original home of the Baťa shoe company
- Koněpůlky (I think horse's ass-cheeks but I've no idea why?) - Pardubice
- Camping - Tábor, which is the Czech word for a camp
You can probably figure out what "voda", "les", "dalnice", "silnice", and "hranice" mean from where they appear all over the map :-)
They’re not really comparable. OSM on its own is basically a database, and an ecosystem with some apps of varying quality built on top.
Google Maps is a standalone end-to-end application with best-in-class POI search, POI metadata, reviews, routing based on live traffic, ETA based on live traffic, etc.
I'd like to use OSM for everything, and while their road mapping is second to none, their POI mapping is lacking and there are no good navigation apps that use OSM data. The best one I've used is Magic Earth but there are some strange design quirks, such as no auto-zoom on the map when navigating by car.
There also comes the issue that OSM in general is not optimized for navigation. Interstate ramps and exits, for instance, are named improperly or not named at all.
Yeah, the data on Apple Maps is just not good enough here. The opening hours are frequently just wrong and can’t be trusted.
Part of the reason for that is they use Yelp as a data source which is pretty much non-existent here. If I look at a popular local restaurant on Apple Maps (one which has thousands of reviews on both Google and TripAdvisor) then the opening hours are just wrong and seemingly pulled from Yelp where the restaurant is unclaimed and has just 9 reviews, all in English rather than the native language.
That's what many don't realize. Apple shows really fantastic and detailed 3D handcrafted maps each year at WWDC, then when you dig deeper, you find out that it's only for like 3 American cities and it's coming in a year... Basically useless for 99% of people.
While Maps also has some discrepancies between cities and also different countries, in general it's a lot more consistent and features roll out more widely.
You make it sound like Apple's efforts stop after announcing at WWDC. They do seem to be following through. The "new maps" were announced in 2018. They finished the continental US in January 2020 and since expanded to Canada, UK, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, and Italy with the most previous update released last month.
Announced WWDC 2018, arrived to the neighbor to the north 2.5 years later in December 2020, that's still quite a gap. But to be clear I was referring to the brand new detailed maps announced this year.
> This will only be available in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York, and London by the end of the year.
Apple Maps doesn’t have cycling navigation anywhere, kinda strange for such a hip and (self proclaimed) environmentally conscious company. That renders it literally unusable anywhere, IMHO.
[Edit: I just learned from another comment that Apple Maps _does_ have cycling directions at least in London, which I didn’t know about]
This happened to my wife and me just last night on the east coast of the UK. We followed directions to a named restaurant POI on Apple Maps and ended up in the middle of nowhere.
I tried apple maps 2 years ago just because my android died and my wife pulled out her iphone.
It was on a tahoe trip to ski, we happened to hit a snowstorm that day. Apple Maps decided to optimize the route and suggested a better route through a friggin road that passed rather close to a ski station (could even look the name up).
We had a 4x4 and we were fine for the most part, but things got really bad when descending, started loosing traction and in one turn we actually slided and the snow stopped us on the edge of a cliff, not even exagerating.
To be 100% clear, this is entirely our fault. We should have been with chains from the very beginning. But it's still shocking to me Apple Maps would suggest such a freaking route in the middle of a snow storm. Would Gmaps have done the same? Probably?
Experience was bad enough to swear never open AMaps again.
I’ve been using the Verizon map app for navigation for many years. Until recently, it’s been better for me than Google- it’s simplified, which is good when driving.
But it’s not as reliable, in the sense that it sometimes recommends seasonal roads that are closed in the winter and even in the summer need AWD.
I haven’t had any problem with Apple Maps, and I appreciate the integration with the Apple Watch. So, I’m using it more. Plus, the Yelp app connects to Apple Maps automatically.
Apple Maps tends to be better in English speaking countries, or otherwise where there's a lot of iPhones. Google Maps is almost universally better anywhere else.
I was very happy when Apple "finally" added cycling directions in London. That was the only reason why I used Google Maps.
Apple does give me some funky directions through Victoria Park, though I'm always surprised when any map service can route through parks somewhat well.
Yes: I absolutely understood the catalyst, but not the reason. I will rephrase my question: why did you want to switch? Is that less confusing? The person I am responding to seemed eager to leave Google Maps, but couldn't because of one critical feature; once that critical feature was there, removing the reason they had not to switch... but, there still had to be some remaining reason why the person switched: a reason that had caused them to be waiting to switch this whole time (and while I have some ideas as to what that reason might be, it isn't at all obvious which one and I didn't want to bias the answer by suggesting any). Is this really such a strange concept? :(
Good for you one mega-city in Europe* got proper apple treatment after 10 years lets wait 20 more years for other monster cities, and then they can maybe add some cities under a 10 million population :D
What’s the other option? Google is the only internet map ever? Or no other internet map can ever release anything until they have perfect global coverage?
> It touts working offline, do you have save map data for an area first or can you use it the same way as other map apps?
You download a region before being there, then you can use the app completely offline.
The 'completely offline' modus only works for the downloaded data, obviously.
I'm using it quite a bit abroad, since roaming data outside of Switzerland is really expensive :)
OM is ok, but the contours are coarse and in meters. I use Gaia, which has far more capability and also works offline. But, note that Gaia has been bought recently by Outside. I’m concerned about maintaining privacy, based on the email they sent.
I should mention that Apple Maps, being vector based, can be pre-downloaded using the hotel wifi when you are in a roaming area and will work for many blocks around the hotel without using the radios. Google won’t.
Organic Maps is amazing. For hiking and climbing it has routes that Google and Apple do not put on their maps. For offline mode you can download entire US states or countries and the search is instant once you've downloaded the data to your phone. I still use Google/Apple Maps for navigation, but mostly because I've never give Organic Maps navigation a try.
https://cycle.travel/ is (in my opinion) unbeatable for bike-navigation, but I use it more for planning a ride (and exporting the GPX file to my Garmin Edge) than for 'on-the-go' routing.
Their shop/restaurant opening times are still totally useless though. I live in Stoneybatter (next effectively 15 min walk from the city centre for those not from Dublin) and I’d estimate that at least 1/3rd of the correct waypoints, opening times, and associated data in the area is from me slowly correcting stuff over the last few years.
It is, though one thing apple could improve is the feedback on errors- it’s routing thinks some major streets are one way here and that others aren’t which seems hard to fix.
Well in the medium sized Norwegian city I live in Google maps doesn't have integration for the local public transport company, but Apple maps does. It's also significantly more responsive.
I think Germany is kinda special case in Europe (privacy laws etc) so google maps are probably a lot worse then in the rest of Europe :) [Never use google maps in Germany and i only visited Germany once in my live :)]
I switched to Apple Maps a couple years ago and it’s been much better for me around the US; especially, Denver and Portland areas. Google maps still has a lot of issues with navigating around Portland.
Yeah. I've used OpenStreetMap too, and while it does tend to be more accurate than Apple Maps, Google Maps is still unmatched. If you're on an iPhone, I'd recommend you switch to OpenStreetMaps at the very least.
In the UK Apple Maps is my preferred choice for Navigation. Google wins over finding actual places, though Apple Maps is getting better fast> I also use Apple Maps driving in France with no problems.
But a map app is so much more than street maps and navigation. I have tried to switch to Apple Maps, and it works great for navigation or getting an overview of the streets. But I cannot use Apple Maps to explore!
With Google maps, I just fire it up and search “sights” to find places near that are worth a visit. “Public beaches” to find where I can go for a swim. If I try the same with Apple Maps, more often than not I get sent to a place in Myanmar or similar which happens to be tagged as “public beach”.
Also when I search for a business on Google maps, I get photos and reviews. With Apple Maps I am happy if I get a link to a website.
I agree with you but to be fair I just tapped “public beaches” in to Apple Maps and got a bunch of nearby public beaches.
The Yelp integration is what annoys me. I don’t care much about the stars or anything in Google Maps but the photos and sometimes comments be can very instructive. On Apple Maps this information is hidden behind a third party service I don’t use or want to use.
I opened up my settings to allow Google maps to have access to my location all the time, even when not using the app.
I have found the Timeline feature in Google maps to be a huge game changer in terms of 'where ive been' and 'what Ive done'. I can look back months, see exactly what routes I went down, where I was at a given time. It will even match pictures with the locations.
Especially for journaling vacations (sometimes weeks later), and reliving memories, its the greatest app Ive used in some time.
That's the thing, to me, the fact that the information is connected to me is the reason I use Google maps. I understand it's not for everyone, but to me it's a feature, not a bug.
The issue with privacy labels also is that you have to list the worst possible scenario, whereas through options, you can possibly reduce that list quite a bit.
Google Maps now has an incognito mode which unless I'm wrong would be equivalent if not more privacy centric than Apple Maps. But again, the privacy labels can't show that, they only show labels for the worse case.
I consciously leave a lot of the Google data collecting features on.
More than once, Google search suggestions have been freakishly good; this is coming out of my ass, but I feel like they might use your contacts for suggestions, which I usually notice studying last minute for a test or whatnot.
Then, of course, you have things like Google Photos, the aforementioned Google Maps features, etc.
> I can look back months, see exactly what routes I went down, where I was at a given time.
So can Google.
I'd love to have these features but the price is just too high. The price would be too high even if I trusted Google (which I don't), because every company that collects personal information will be hacked because no company is properly incentivised to protect users' data.
You know your phone service provider has that location information in resolution that’s almost as good, right?
The only way to opt out is to turn your phone off (equivalently, leave it at home).
For some people, the fact that google also knows it is no big deal. For some it is. But if you are worried about your whereabouts being leaked, how can you justify using a phone in the first place? Verizon and AT&T are more likely to get hacked than google (or just sell that info outright, which they have done wholesale before)
You know that most people don’t have a choice in whether or not to have a cell phone, right?
Privacy fatalism helps no one. Demanding that someone who is concerned about their privacy to “justify” their situation — one which they have no practical way of opting out of - is victim blaming.
Some people don’t want to be tracked. Any steps they take to reach that state are valid. Absolute privacy is impossible in this dystopia we now inhabit —- much of which has been built by the people who frequent this board —- but these doesn’t make Google’s absolutely trash privacy practices any less egregious.
> You know your phone service provider has that location information in resolution that’s almost as good, right?
Not really. Tower triangulation is nowhere close to as accurate. It places you in the general agea with a pretty large error bound. Leaking Behavioural details require fine grained location.
> You know your phone service provider has that location information in resolution that’s almost as good, right?
Just because one industry has access to my location data without me being able to stop it, doesn't mean I'm going to give any other company that wants it unfettered access to my location data for whatever purpose they want.
With maps the good news is I do have an opportunity to pick providers that have better privacy policies.
If someone chooses to be privacy focused, then they will likely opt out of the things that they can control - that doesn’t change because there are others they can’t.
“Voluntarily” is doing some heavy lifting there. Is it “voluntary” if it’s required to use the service — including aspects that don’t “need” it? Is it “voluntary” if the use of that data is governed by one-sided terms that the collecting party can change at any time, for any reason, with little notice or no notice at all? Is it “voluntary” if the technology is so complex that any average-intelligence user could not possibly weigh the pros and cons of such a decision in the face of a $1T company’s cabal of PhD holding ML scientists inventing new ways to exploit that information?
At this point, location tracking by companies is about as “voluntary” as using the web itself.
Or about as voluntary as actions which are performed with a pistol to one’s head.
>I'd love to have these features but the price is just too high.
I know you're speaking in broader terms, but for anyone interested you can have this specific feature (location history) using owntracks and owntracks recorder completely privately.
If you carry a cell phone, your location is already logged by by the wireless carriers, whom I trust much less with my data, both in terms of keeping it secure and not reselling it to third parties [1].
Certainly, some people will want to minimize the number of parties that know you were in location X at time Y. But I’d guess that for many people, myself included, that data simply isn’t that sensitive or interesting.
I've used the app Arc for the same purpose: recording my location all the time even when not running so I know where I've been. But Arc has an excellent privacy policy: all location data stored and processed locally. This is a compromise: local processing means the app can be slow, but IMO the privacy aspects far outweigh a sluggish UI.
What a tight rope this author has to walk. You want commute suggestions but you don’t want google to know where you live or work?
I’ll bat for google on this one, the value I get from Gmaps vs the value they get from my data seems like a fair exchange.
Also PSA, if you use Bluetooth with your car, your city transport department is tracking you. Best of luck opting out of that or even finding who to contact.
> Also PSA, if you use Bluetooth with your car, your city transport department is tracking you. Best of luck opting out of that or even finding who to contact.
Can you say more about this? I've never heard of it.
Houston does it. They have bluetooth trackers on all the highways. They use it for determining congestion based on how often you can ping the same address. Keeps pinging? Gridlock. Pings once, traffic moving.
They put powerful bluetooth sensors on poles or in roadside cabinets. They're pretty cheap to deploy so have become widely used.
Pretty much if you have two bluetooth devices talking to each other, you can be tracked by your bluetooth mac address. (Same as wifi networks and sniffing with wireshark etc)
Or if you have a device pinging with a non-random mac (ie your car).
If you've got an iphone and it's not actively being used, you get a random mac, no problems.
you don’t even need bluetooth. there’s license plate readers on all highways which feed into traffic indicators on apps or those road signs that say how many minutes away places are
Apple maps has a lot of weaknesses, particularly the search along route limitations that I bump into all the time. Mostly in the US it's "good enough" though.
BUT when I started seeing so many obvious advertising things going on in google maps the writing was on the wall. Lately the advert items started looking an awful lot like my starred places, that's some dark patterns I'm not going to put up with.
I’m curious - does anyone reading this agree with the notion that Apple maps is becoming comparable to Google maps?
I haven’t given it a fair shot in almost a decade I guess, and it was almost unusable then. Does anyone here use it as a daily driver? What are the strong and weak points?
I use Apple Maps as my primary GPS in my vehicle. I have spent the last few years on the road driving across North America and Google Maps repeatedly made objectively incorrect decisions in rural areas that would take me in quasi-off road situations. After I got frustrated being led astray I started comparing routes on both and found that it seems to be a logic issue for Google Maps, where it would save 5 km of distance and not recognize the unpaved backroads with tons of twists and turns would add significant time. Apple Maps somehow did recognize this.
I only kept Google Maps installed for info on things along a route or opening hours but since then I’ve deleted it and just use Duck Duck Go to do searches, combined with Apple Maps for GPS.
Edit: one more thing: in the city I am from there has been a lot of development. Google is missing a ton of roads in near areas where Apple Maps is not.
The bad choices in rural areas for Google Maps seems to be a recent thing. My guess is that it's a result of a new approach of combining computer vision of satellite imagery with phone location data from ranchers driving on their private dirt roads.
Google Maps took me down all sorts of goofy unpacked backroads in Crete this past month. It’d cut the driving distance in half and double the driving time. Although my Fiat Panda rental did surprisingly well on uneven, unpaved roads.
I had the same experience even in Santa Clara County. Google maps led me to drive on unpaved roads along the farms near Gilroy in order to avoid the congested 101. It's not worthwhile, and I'd argue Google should expose an option to let me express my preference.
We probably shouldn't be surprised that a navigation app that tells you to make left turns during rush hour in San Francisco doesn't behave any more rationally in rural areas that aren't a stone's throw away from the company's own headquarters.
Being able to express your preference isn't what Google is all about. Their attitude is that they know best.
I had the same in Italy (Tuscany) with Google Maps. One way it recommended a longer normal road, on the way back it was a shorter dirt road through fields and forests. Had to stop once to let a fox cross the road (it didn't seem to care much about me). In the end it took as much time if not more.
Those rental Pandas can take you everywhere though.
And that is absolutely what I would expect from Google: clueless, heavy-handed of the latest shiny technology rather than using existing methods and data that were working perfectly.
Yep there are many private roads and driveways being shown as part of the road network. Google treats private roads as just roads. (Which is a pretty good analogy for how they treat private information as just information, but I'm being flippant.) I'm waiting for the wrongful-death suit by the family of the shot trespasser.
An apt analogy, and I think your discussion of private roads / driveways is accurate as to what the problem is.
I will never forget being led from a highway, to a side road, to a gravel road, to a rougher gravel road, to a one lane gravel road, to something that looked like a washed out river at best, only to be blocked by a large steer standing in the middle of the "road" that appeared to be as stunned by my presence there as I was. I ended up having to reverse quite a bit before I could find somewhere to turn around. I deleted Google Maps shortly thereafter.
I thought that might be the case but when I zoom in I can see the back roads in Apple Maps. I am pretty sure it is a algorithm issue. Google doesn’t have enough data about how slow those back roads are and maybe relies on that data more than Apple does.
"Go past this stop sign, then at the light, turn right on X Avenue" - it's exactly how you would expect human directions.
Google Maps is absolutely worst in class, behind all competitors I have ever used, in spoken directions. Here is a very common Google Maps direction from where I live: "In 300 feet, keep left toward Alabama 231 South / Alabama 431 South / Memorial Parkway Southwest, then keep left onto Memorial Parkway Southwest."
By the time Google Maps finishes reading this direction, it's taken so long that you will actually miss the next step in the directions. Google Maps doesn't interrupt itself in this situation, and it is often extremely long winded.
Even when you start directions on Google Maps, you get a mostly pointless, long-winded direction. "Head east on Pratt Avenue Northeast." And if you start by traveling perpendicular to that direction, you'll often get, "Head east on -- Head east on -- Head east on -- Head east on --", repeating every time you pass an intersection, until you finally comply by heading east. Good luck if you don't know which direction is east.
Speaking of this nightmare scenario, Google Maps will also get stuck rapidly talking over itself if you accidentally select walking directions, but you are driving. Apple Maps detects this situation and automatically fixes it.
So I guess I use Apple Maps because it doesn't have any of these extremely frustrating and borderline dangerous problems.
This right here. I am fairly new to driving, and Apple Maps has been great for my driving confidence. Such crisp, ahead of time, clear directions in major metro US. It also does a much better job at rerouting than Google Maps. I avoid rush hour highways right now, and Apple maps does a good job of figuring out an alternative route once I head on it a bit.
Google Maps has given me directions that just increase my stress level on the road.
I almost entirely use Apple Maps. I live in a large city so the data is very accurate. And I only really use it for driving, so I can't compare transit, hiking trails, etc. When I travel to less populated parts of the country Google Maps is far more accurate and complete. That's the only difference I've noticed.
Google Maps is pretty good for transit and pretty bad for hiking trails. Can't speak to Apple Maps. While imperfect, OpenStreetMaps is fairly reliable for hiking trails, including unofficial ones, in populated areas of the US at any rate.
One thing that really winds me up is that the colour scheme in google maps is ‘wrong’ in the sense that it does not match existing local maps. Apple maps have put a lot of effort into making the colour scheme and labels match existing maps. At least where I live in the uk.
Motorways show up in blue with white-on-blue-rounded-rectangle labels (matching road signs) with A-roads in green. Junction numbers show up as white-in-black-rounded-rectangle like on road signs. On google maps, the motorways and A-roads are yellow. Motorways get blue labels but it’s the wrong shade and shape. A-road labels are slightly better. A failure of apple maps is that they don’t show junction numbers on the regular maps while google does. But their maps mostly look like the road atlases I remember.
If I look at public transport, apple have made a much better attempt to match the look of underground maps in London (failure example: the map doesn’t make it obvious that the jubilee line stops at green park.) Google maps don’t get such good results though they try to match colours of lines. Google maps don’t have national rail but apple do. If I look at New York, apple have tried to capture the different style of their metro network (also their American road labels look like the road signs and this seems less the case for google but I don’t know so much about US road signs.)
The feature I really wish for, especially in car play, is plan views of road junctions like roundabouts or weird intersections. Neither maps app does this.
It's mostly fine. But I can't trust it to be up-to-date for business locations and opening hours. Some places (even high-traffic places like McDonalds) are missing, some closed places haven't been removed after months (years?), and opening hours are just as broken. I'll always double check with a Google search. It's been fine for public transport and driving navigation.
Business information in Apple Maps -- at least in the US -- comes from Yelp. I haven't really had the experiences you're describing, but I live in northern California, where Yelp seems to be pretty up-to-date most of the time. (With a caveat that it's been worse in 2020, but I suppose that's not unexpected for a crowdsourced directory during a year most of the crowd wasn't going out.)
I don't know if that's entirely true. I wouldn't say I lean on business hours in the app often, but things have gotten weird with Covid. In the last month I found a bunch of hours wrong in both Yelp and Apple Maps--they each had different wrong hours listed. Maybe Apple pulls from Yelp monthly or quarterly? Maybe Apple populated their own database years ago and maintain it separately? Whatever the method they each have their own way for users to report incorrect hours.
That is interesting! I haven't noticed discrepancies between Yelp and Apple Maps before, but now I feel like I'm going to have to start checking more closely. My assumption -- which now seems shakier -- is that if you reported an issue through Apple Maps, it basically got forwarded to Yelp.
Same here, been using it for a few years in the Bay Area. The main reason I prefer Apple Maps is that the user interface is vastly better, especially in a car with CarPlay. I’ve used it on long road trips in the US as well, but I will often do a route sanity check against Google Maps in areas I’m very unfamiliar with.
I only drive in rather large cities, and find that Waze >> Apple >> Google from a usability perspective; Waze and Google Maps supposedly
Use the same backend these days, but somehow both UI and navigation in Waze seems to work better.
I really really like OSM through Organic Maps (previously through maps.me) but it has no congestion data, so mostly useless for driving during business hours.
I've been exclusively using Apple Maps for 3 years, never looked back. Spending most of my time in urban-ish areas, it'll not know about some destination maybe once a year. The UX for live directions is great; it'll give you little details like "go past this stop sign and turn at the one right after it" which are really nice. The UI is generally less crowded too.
Apple Maps is quite good if you use it one of the major US cities… but it’s still weak in most other places. As a European customer, Google maps have more up to date information, better traffic data, public construction information etc.
I’m in Europe and use both depending on what I need. If you don’t know where you want to go yet, or you need data about a business, Google is better. For the rest I prefer Apple’s UX.
These conversations pop up every now and again on HN. I was getting frustrated with Google Maps a few years ago, when I read one of these articles on here about how Apple Maps is better than Google Maps. I decided to give it a try (and fully uninstalled GMaps so that I would be forced to use it.)
I live around Austin, TX, so there could be variations in my experience, but generally for common use cases, Apple Maps is on par.
Where I find it excels above Google Maps is on navigation and directions, hands down. When my wife puts on Gmaps navigation on her phone I put on Apple Maps on mine. (we have same phone and network). If there ever is a mistake, slow update, mispronunciation, etc. it is always on Google Maps side. This has cost us a lot of time, until we finally switched over to rely on Apple Maps for navigation. The search and interface are also about the same, but I prefer the Apple Maps a bit more, but that is more personal preference.
Where it underperforms is in the search and reviews avenue, as it primarily relies on yelp reviews rather than native reviews, which can be hit or miss. I don't really miss it, but if it do, I just search google for the place to read their reviews. Also, Some place results lack correct details in Apple Maps (rare)--I think since many places have to update the info themselves, this might drive the issue. Example would be updated menu links or hours for holidays.
Many of the other posts on this thread point out the differences along other use cases, where Google Maps excels, but for daily, average use, I am happy to use Apple Maps as daily driver.
I agree with the notion. It was pretty terrible for the first 3 years. A second place contender for a few years after that, but for the last few years it has been clearly as good.
I am not going to enumerate strong and weak points. It’s a matter of taste at this point. Just try it again.
Yes. I stopped using Google Maps years ago because Apple’s estimates are far more accurate and less stressful (mostly DC-Boston corridor). Google would suggest routes which were allegedly faster but that was based on assuming no traffic anywhere so things like unprotected left turns across major roads would be a net time savings.
Actual arrival times tended to be about the same as Apple’s original estimates when, say, it turned out that I-95 really did have traffic at the same places it always does.
Huh. I know for sure here (DC metro area) Google's navigation definitely takes traffic into account both for time estimates and routing. It'd be pretty useless otherwise: traffic is pretty much the major component of travel time for many/most trips.
I haven't used Google Maps in a while, but I remember joking that it gave time estimates as if everyone was driving Ferraris: they always seemed to be extremely optimistic.
The OP's comment about Google's directions often giving you things like unprotected left turns across major roads matches my experience with Waze, so I wonder if Google is pulling in more data/algorithms from them now. I know lots of people love (loved?) Waze and I used to be one of them, but I eventually just couldn't handle how almost every ride with Waze had become the algorithmic equivalent of your crazy uncle saying "I know a shortcut. Trust me."
It seemed to take current conditions into account - route around areas that are already bad but it didn’t seem to account for typical volume at the time you’ll likely be somewhere. We used to get these routes showing normal speeds all the way through NYC, even though it was obvious that conditions would be different by the time we go there.
I’d hope they’ve improved it since then. I mostly stopped using it because I’d get tons of unprotected left turns on major roads or zig-zag routes through neighborhoods and it just wasn’t worth having to deal with that to save a minute.
I prefer the driving and lane instructions on Apple Maps.
With a few notable exceptions it has gotten me where I'm going every time.
The few exceptions are places near me where the address is a bit wonky on Apple Maps and the driving instructions are either completely bonkers (routes around a house through a parking lot instead of directly) or off by one street. The address is correct, but the access road doesn't have a name, so it gets confused.
Well, Google doesn't operate services in China so is not giving data to China. If you look carefully in the TOS for your Apple products, you'll see that iCloud data (including like messages) are operated by Apple with the exception of China, where they are operated by a third-party contractor who does the dirty work of complying with Chinese government speech laws/police requests.
Interesting. I didn't realize Google did not operate any services in China. I thought the Chinese government filtered certain services that they didn't have the ability to censor.
Well, for instance, there is no Google.cn, there is only Google Hong Kong.
Google Maps will still give you very basic maps in China, but at least in both Beijing and Shanghai the maps are unusable unfortunately.
You're correct that they are blocked by China. The reason they are blocked is because they haven't built a censored version of their search and don't provide China with data from emails, etc. - this is in contrast with Apple's approach. I don't know where it falls on censorship, since Apple isn't in the search business, but my guess is you would notice differences in Siri's behavior (for instance).
They took a stand against the regime trying to control their business there, as well as turning over all user data without question (at least for people operating within their borders)
Apple Maps in China is not powered by their own data. It's data licensed from a third party (Gao De). Chinese law prevents private citizens and corporations from mapping the country unless with a special license.
But yes I agree with you from my own visit in Shanghai that Google Maps is not worth using in China.
I use an iPhone, keep all my casual media and textbooks on an iPad, and use a MacBook Pro for work. I'd really like to use Apple if I could, but I have no idea why all these people are supporting Apple maps.
I tried desperately to use it for half a year (in the US), gritting my teeth at the endless frustrations. From the inability to get info on any business or location other than a highly biased Yelp popup, to the voice directions telling me to turn as I'm approaching the turn before it actually wants me to turn, to the flat-out wrong streets. I've found myself being led to random dead-ends that the map said should be a thoroughfare, but obviously never had been and would unlikely be in any near future.
Similarly, I'm astonished at the bad service in their cloud, files, photos, music, and suite of office document programs. Just terrible for such a huge company. I can only conclude that they don't care, since they're making more than enough money on hardware.
Apple Maps has a different tracking/lag time on your location compared to Google Maps such that every time I try to switch I start missing (a lot of) turns while driving. Maybe it’s time to just get used to the different cursor…
I consider Apple maps to be trash most everywhere I use it, which is the American midwest. Last time i searched for "lawnmower repair" in my area it netted one result. I believe there's more than a dozen within ten minutes of me though. I normally have to look something up in Google Maps (where i keep location services disabled), then copy and paste the address into Apple Maps for Carplay.
The other day when watching a Silicon Valley rerun I couldn't help but laugh because they said "is it Apple maps bad?" and i thought "THAT JOKE HASN'T AGED BECAUSE IT'S STILL TERRIBLE."
On the flipside Google maps gives me all kinds of local business number to services that either do not exist or are definitely not local. Pairs nicely with street view images of destructed empty space overgrown with brush.
I agree. Organic Maps also has climbing/mountaineering routes that are completely hidden on Google/Apple maps. My friends download GPX files prior to going out, I just open up OSM. :)
I used it occasionally, at one point it was better than GMaps when data connection was spotty. But sooner or later I'd always go back, because directions-related features always felt better in the Google world.
This is in Northern England though. In the Big Smoke it might be different.
I’ve been using Apple Maps in Canada, and I’d say it’s decidedly better than the competition. Navigation is at least as good as Google and Waze, and the UI/UX is far superior. Biggest deficiency is search and POI information. I’ll usually search a location on Google Maps to get general information about it, before using Apple Maps to navigate there.
Yes. We actually use Apple Maps for emergency vehicle routing. It is the default option for one of our call notification apps. A 911 call comes in, and we can map to it before dispatch even gives us the information.
At least in Northern California and where I worked in both Texas and Oklahoma, Apple has done a magical job of mapping.
I greatly prefer the UX of Apple Maps for navigation, but the search is still bad compared to Google Maps. The verbal directions and UI are clearer IMO.
Both have been equally bad at keeping directions up to date, though, but I live in a relatively mutable city. If I were living in the burbs, I would probably stick with Apple Maps.
How do you use Apple Maps in rural areas? The lack of an offline mode makes it impossible to use without internet. Google maps I can download the area.
We were already using Apple Maps pre-iOS15 because its turn-by-turn directions were far superior.
With Google Maps, we were often surprised by the directions: it would be like keep left... keep left...TURN AROUND NOW.
Apple Maps often shows the next two directions, and more clearly dictates what we should do next.
... with iOS15, Apple maps are just gorgeous, and I've completely deleted Google maps (I now have no dependence on Google services for personal life).
Google has sat on its hands the last couple years with Google Maps: it has hardly improved at all, and outside of their move to jack up prices for API users, I haven't heard of any real changes.
> Google has sat on its hands the last couple years with Google Maps: it has hardly improved at all, and outside of their move to jack up prices for API users, I haven't heard of any real changes.
It's a pretty mature product, so you'd expect the pace of signjificant change to be much slower. And large, noticeable change (like a redesign) is a poor metric, as it often feels like a PM getting their wings at the expense of user experience, including muscle memory in an app as useful as Maps.
Despite these caveats, I can think of a new feature off the top of my head: a heatmap of all photos I've ever taken appearing on Google maps. I just moved to New York and it's been both useful and delightful to rediscover where I've been from a new perspective, driven by the serendipitous photos I took over the last decade of sporadic visits.
Yet another new feature I just remembered is Live View compass calibration. Anybody who lives in a big city can relate to how irritating compass quality is around large buildings. The ability to calibrate my compass in two seconds via camera recognition of the street scene is a huge quality of life improvement.
Im usually hesitant to disagree with other people's opinions, but it really sounds like you either have no familiarity with Google Maps or are stuck in a 2010 Apple vs Google fanboy-war view of the world. The reason Maps is so wildly popular is because it consistently pushes out user experience both improvements that are straightforwardly (if incrementally) useful and occasional larger "cool" (and also useful) features. To get as wildly wrong an interpretation as yours (of Maps as somehow stagnant) reeks of willful ignorance.
Thanks! I must've mixed them up. The Live View compass calibration is a better example, plus an idle Google search found a couple more examples of new useful features (like more AR-overlay info)
It's been years and Google maps still recommends an illegal/suicidal/likely impossible u-turn near my parent's place in NYC. Might be time to switch to Apple Maps for driving directions.
I’ve been using Apple Maps since getting my first CapPlay compatible car. I switched because the Google Maps app was (and remains) awful to use. GM forces you to view a very small view of where you are going next. Multiple click to access trip view and custom map scale. In contrast, Apple Maps makes it easy to toggle between multiple views with one click and the UI is less cluttered.
Personally, I like to use the map to occasionally update my mental map, not for turn by turn spoon-feeding. Apple’s app makes this much more convenient.
Additionally, bookmarking in Google Maps remains primitive and hard to manage. Apple introduced collections over the last few years which are great.
What I miss the most about Google Maps is the photos, which are generally better than Yelp (and don’t open a new app).
Apple has work to do outside of US, but their maps make steady progress year after year, and if the US indicate where rest of the world is headed, things will get better.
Personally I have a decade of travel in Google Maps timeline, hundreds of cities, dozens of countries. I use that and exif data in photos as a way to self document my life and look back on what I did.
Apple offers nothing like this. I can even download a Takeout dump from Google import it other apps for processing.
Apple Maps POI database still seems pretty bad IMHO, but worse is that it’s search function is broken. If I am searching for something, return results sorted by distance. Sometimes Apple Maps returns businesses with the same name in other states or countries before one right next to me. Maybe their POI database isn’t the problem, and it’s search. Given the years they’ve had to improve their broken App Store search, it doesn’t raise my confidence that it’ll improve soon.
I love the way Apple Maps gives turn by turn directions: “go past these lights and at the next set, turn left”. Just way more understandable as a ... human.
However, it commonly gives me just the wrong destination. Just the other day, it put me five blocks away from the actual address in Downtown LA. Which is... well, suboptimal.
Outside of niche cases, every user I've ever talked to, here or in-person, has only ever used brand loyalty as their reason for using it. With a userbase like that, why bother making a good service, particularly when you don't have the institutional competency to do so?
Okay, in a comment you left literally three minutes before this you were accusing someone else of being "stuck in a 2010 Apple vs Google fanboy-war view of the world," and now you're saying, in so many words, only people who are fanboys use Apple maps because Apple fans are sheep so why should Apple bother. Pick a lane.
Yes, the juxtaposition occurred to me. But this is not an accurate representation of my view:
> you're saying, in so many words, only people who are fanboys use Apple maps because Apple fans are sheep so why should Apple bother.
This is a reasonable interpretation if you read my comment carelessly, because I was pretty imprecise with my phrasing.
First off, I don't think my sample is close to representative of all users, but I've come across it often enough in diverse enough contexts that I'm comfortable considering brand-loyalty-as-motivation to be a non-trivial part of the market dynamic here.
I'm also not artificially deducing brand loyalty from assumptions about the quality of the product, and I recognize that its most famous failings don't encapsulate overall product quality (in fact, I didn't make any direct claims about product quality). The "brand-loyal" people I'm referring to are the ones who've explicitly said to me that they use Apple Maps so that it can "get more user data and get better". This kind of altruism is vanishingly rare in most product relationships, and brand loyalty is by far the most parsimonious explanation. This shouldn't be surprising; theres a reason that Apple's marketing and product competencies are world-renowned, and I have plenty of other from-the-horse's-mouth examples (like the family members who sincerely ask me why I'd choose an Android, as they had _literally_ never heard a reason other than "can't afford an iPhone").
Apple's relatively poor competency at services (vs hardware products) is a subjective claim, but one that isn't an unreasonable conclusion for a thoughtful person to land on (or disagree with).
To put it all together, something like this more accurately conveys my point:
I have enough data points of strong brand loyalty shaping Apple consumer behavior, particularly in the case of Maps, that I fairly consider it a non-trivial factor in usage of the product. I don't discount (and in fact directly call out) the possibility of the app fitting a specific consumer better, nor do I claim that it's not a better product overall, as I'm not familiar enough with it to make that claim. A situation with stickier brand loyalty _requires_ less competition on usability than the counterfactual (this is practically tautological).
If you can't see the difference between the above and the trivially-disprovable factual claims in the comment I described, then your definition of "fanboy" seems to be little more than "dislike a product I like".
I use Apple CarPlay almost exclusively now, and will never buy a car that doesn’t support it anymore.
When using navigation, I will often use Apple Maps. Their biggest advantage is that their directions will say “after the next stop sign, turn right at the following traffic light.” Thats so much more useful than most other Map apps. So in the city, I prefer Apple Maps. If I need the shortest route including traffic or if I need to drive fast and watch out for cops, I will use Waze.
In my experience Apple does a pretty great job with redirecting around traffic and stuff too. I'm sure it won't be as good as Waze since that's their whole thing, but it's plenty good enough for me
I'm curious what the privacy labels for Google Maps in Incognito mode would be. The thing with the labels is that you have to list all the labels as if all the features were enabled and set to the least private option. Google maps has over a decade of features that people use and love.
For example, I personally would be outraged if they removed Timeline, which I rely on daily, but that feature alone probably adds a dozen privacy labels, even though it's optional.
The other difference is that Google Maps has to build everything into the app directly. The privacy label for Apple Maps gets a 'free ride' on so many things by virtue of piggybacking on OS-level functionality.
Same thing applies to Messages vs. WhatsApp/Messenger and bunch of others.
Google maps has a couple annoying features, the main one being the location arrow is confusing, I am by far not the only one saying this.
And as of recently, in some locations I have been(large western European capitals) it is lagging, on different networks and devices.
Many wrong turns taken because of that, this is very time consuming during peak traffic hours in large, dense cities.
Not sure about apple maps, but Google maps has me on the fence considering changing the app.
Also is there a feature where I can save "school for kids", "work", "sports"? I could not locate it.
i would be in a minority here but i use osmand+ on my phone. in my city, openstreetmaps is still in its infancy relatively speaking so what i do is, if i go somewhere and i see problem spots, wrong turn or missing road or a point, intersection or something. I just mark it and once home, i update the map for everyone.
while this might not be for everyone. It is time consuming for me but i find this a good exercise for myself.
i use streetcomplete (android app) often to update the streets and that is a good feature of openstreetmaps
100% this spirit. I like how I can take an active role in my community helping with this kinda stuff. I ask business owners all sorts of missing details you can't add to the other maps. Some people have laughed when my maps are appear empty in some places, but when I show them how easy it was to meaningfully contribute and the aforementioned details, I hear comments of jealousy.
Same thing. Marketting plays a big role. Everyone around me uses Google maps because why not?
I showed a relative about offline tracks and camping and route mapping. He's like "well I can offline save Google maps".
I never got to the article as I gave up after 25 "no" clicks on the cookie form. (I know I could block better - but sometimes I like to see the state of the bad ui design). Websites like Forbes and The Condé Nast ones don't exist in my world as I don't go there.
As to Apple maps I gave up when the dumped us in a field in Norfolk (England). It was about 5 miles from the proper destination, and no clue how to get to a road going there.
Apple's driving coverage has been improving and is now as good as Google's in the SF Bay area. Google is still better at walking directions (especially involving building access), and I'm sure their coverage is superior globally. Apple doesn't support multi-point itineraries and doesn't have depart at / arrive by functionality, which can be very useful.
Apple has generally copied Google's mobile UI approach, which has been devolving for a few years now (2018 brought the large and useless bottom "explore" panel IIRC). Google's iOS app is almost impossible to use as an actual map now -- it's exceedingly difficult to pan, orient, or zoom to inspect things. Everything you do has to be part of some flow that somebody designed, while it flashes surveys at you. Trying to do anything else just bounces you between flows in a loop. It's become and idiot app to the point that I wonder how those involved sleep at night.
I've never tried multi-point itineraries with Google Maps, but the new iOS beta has an "add stop" feature. It's not exactly what I was hoping for because it only has predefined searches ("food", "gas", etc). What it does is pause your original trip with a button to continue. If it could do a generic search along the route it would be exactly what I need most of the time without being too confusing to use.
For an iPad, I find the apple ma-s ui much better. E.g. for search results in portrait, apple give you a column on the side (so you can see the map) but google fill your screen with results which makes more sense on a small phone. Google do the same “better” thing in landscape. I also find Apple’s street view copy much nicer to use but obviously they have the late-mover advantage. Google now have a poor copy of this interface but it’s hidden away.
I mostly rely on audio turn by turn walking directions (in London) and was surprised how bad Google Maps was. For example, it would give directions like “head south on High Street” as if I know which way south is?
Apple Maps isn’t perfect but I can just about rely on audio for navigating (and the occasional glance for everything else)
Apple Maps does not yet offer cycling directions in Chicago, period. Despite it being on their "coming soon" list about 2 years ago. I would love to switch, cmon guys.
My biggest issue with Apple Maps is that I know it has information that it isn’t telling me about, especially so when public transit is involved. Apple almost always picks the worst route when commenting through NYC’s subway, suggesting that you take the closest line and transfer in another station, rather than walking a block to the line directly. And it’s almost always the case that you’ll arrive at a mid-trip station just as your connecting train leaves the platform. You’ve just added a minimum 10 minute wait, plus the time and energy it took to walk through the station!
I would avoid Apple Maps entirely if they allowed Google Maps full access to the Watch OS.
Here in New Zealand there’s State Highway 1 which runs the length of the country. Because of our geography (long and thin) it’s basically the only way to cover long distances quickly.
Inexplicably once or twice a year Apple Maps decides that different sections of SH1 is closed and sends you on a wild detour.
Right now, Apple Maps thinks that a short 30m (100ft) stretch of SH1 is closed just north of Warkworth. (It’s not closed, I drive it daily, and have reported to Apple weeks ago.)
The suggested detour is a miserable, slow, and windy drive. Why Apple, why?!
Apple maps still doesn’t support offline navigation which is a huge issue for me as someone who visits National parks. I used to have a Nokia windows phone back in 2014 which had terrific offline maps and navigation. I still can’t believe why apple hasn’t prioritized offline maps.
I use Google maps which gets its job done and has offline support. I just wish they cleaned up the UI a bit and allowed me to download more area because right now I’ve to do it 3-4 times to get a size able chunk of a state.
My experience (NZ) is that it’s 50-50 whether you get the “Fixed speed camera ahead!” warning before, or after, you drive past the speed camera. (Even approaching the same camera from different directions!)
The position of the cameras is correctly marked on the map, so you just need to keep an eye on the map rather than trust the audible alerts.
Super reliable. I used to get at least 1 speeding ticket per year, I haven’t had a ticket in 8 years thanks to Waze.
Also Waze time estimates are stupidly accurately. You think you can beat their estimate by driving faster but it somehow accounts for that, eg if average speed on 101 is currently 80 mph the estimates will reflect that. Waze puts Apple Maps to shame for navigation.
The way it reports adding a stop (say for gas station) as how many minutes off route is extremely useful.
It's been fairly reliable in practice, but it's based on crowd sourcing. It'll ask you to confirm if you see one someone else has flagged. Sometimes you're the first to see it, sometimes the alert is out of date and there's no officer.
The FA presents a good argument and as a consequence I deleted Google Maps and a few others. I also turned off Location Services for a few apps, notably WhatsApp. I'll try Apple Maps for awhile which in the Bay Area should be a low bar to clear. I'm also looking at OpenStreetMaps apps.
Nobody mentioned the battery/heat issues with Google Maps. My iPhone on a sunny dashboard running Google Maps almost always overheats and drains the battery.
I've switched to Apple Maps on long drives because it uses significantly less battery and phone stays cooler. Has anyone else experienced this?
Apple Maps in London UK is pretty bad with business info - I’ve had to make correction reports for a few things in my neighbourhood I never have to for Google Maps.
Apple Maps needs to provide bicycle directions in my city (Madison, Wisconsin). Until then, it's literally nonfunctional for the vast majority of my trips.
In a Honda with Android Auto and Carplay, Google Maps on Android will take advantage of both vehicle displays whereas Carplay will not. The next turn and distance until next turn is displayed on the speedometer display while showing the full map and UI on the dashboard center display.
For me it seems like fair exchange to give some data, for free and very good service that have no real competition :)