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Apple Maps May Gain Custom Routes With iOS 18
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You might try taking a vacation sometime. You know, where the goal is to see something other than the 4 lane road in front of you.
Thankfully Waze learns that I take a route different than suggested and eventually suggests the route I prefer. However, I'd love the feature as you describe it: some way of saying "if i say I want to go to X and I'm at Y *always* suggest this route I just took".
-bdd
True. But often when I go someplace new, I'm in and out in under an hour. Again, it would be nice to have this feature. It would be optional, of course. Another option might be to (offer to) save my routes so I can choose Eric's Route From Home To Store rather than whatever Maps wants to suggest. I think this ability to save routes is what this article is about.
Freaking finally. When I drive to work I don't take the "correct" route. Since it's something I do over and over again you'd think there would be an option to Maps to learn that preference. I just want to know if there's a wreck that would make my normal route something I should avoid on that particular day.
Wonder if they will fix all of the other bugs and lack of features. As someone who uses Maps daily for part-time delivery work, its terrible.
- With multiple route options, if you select one and then drive through a parking lot, it will change its mind and re-route you before you get out of the parking lot. I chose a route for a reason, be smart enough to keep it while i navigate out of the parking lot.
- Once connected to Car Play you can't add stops to the end
- Once connected to Car Play, you can't reorder stops, only delete them
- If it pops up a notification like a suggestion to drive home and accidently tap it, it wipes out your current route.
- Lately I've had the map start spinning randomly when I get to my destination which makes it really confusing as to what house I'm supposed to be pulling up to
- On MacOS, I can add to Guides, but I can't rename or remove. It never takes effect, I always have to jump over to iOS to make the change
- The other day it told me I had arrived at one house number, yet when I switched to the app on my phone with the delivery information, it had a completely different house number (same street), no idea how Apple Maps invented a new house number that was several townhomes away but I'm glad I was paying attention. Since the App sends the address directly to Maps, I didn't enter the address wrong into Maps.
- I was on a phone call, ended the call, and Maps on Car Play suddenly stopped navigating, and popped up a "Resume Route" box. Why??
- With multiple route options, if you select one and then drive through a parking lot, it will change its mind and re-route you before you get out of the parking lot. I chose a route for a reason, be smart enough to keep it while i navigate out of the parking lot.
- Once connected to Car Play you can't add stops to the end
- Once connected to Car Play, you can't reorder stops, only delete them
- If it pops up a notification like a suggestion to drive home and accidently tap it, it wipes out your current route.
- Lately I've had the map start spinning randomly when I get to my destination which makes it really confusing as to what house I'm supposed to be pulling up to
- On MacOS, I can add to Guides, but I can't rename or remove. It never takes effect, I always have to jump over to iOS to make the change
- The other day it told me I had arrived at one house number, yet when I switched to the app on my phone with the delivery information, it had a completely different house number (same street), no idea how Apple Maps invented a new house number that was several townhomes away but I'm glad I was paying attention. Since the App sends the address directly to Maps, I didn't enter the address wrong into Maps.
- I was on a phone call, ended the call, and Maps on Car Play suddenly stopped navigating, and popped up a "Resume Route" box. Why??
Yes! I have used Apple Maps since the earliest days (it was the only map app that could identify my actual address), and every day I take the same route to work, avoiding a certain major highway in my area. Yet in 12 years it still tells me to take that highway every day to and from work, despite my NEVER EVER USING IT. So much for machine learning. (When I briefly used Waze, it learned my habits in a week.) So a custom route opportunity will be a relief.
They still haven't updated the highway by my house in DFW, a pretty large metro area, that was finished 5 years ago. Every time I try to go somewhere it doesn't know where the roads are so I had to switch back over to Google Maps. Apple just needs to swallow their pride and use google as the tool behind their maps again.
Apple Maps works perfectly fine and looks far better than Google Maps. The comparisons I've done, it gives much better, more clear instructions too.
That’s not the intended use case and will likely be limited by Apple’s car centric data and pathing logic. I’d suggest some other great apps like Gaia GPS or Footpath that are designed and optimized for this.
I wish they weren’t subscription-based, but paying for Map API access isn’t free these days.
I think this is pretty dependent on where you are. In my case, it’s Google who is missing a ton of local data and gives bad directions when I drive/bike/walk. It’s been two years since a two way street was made one way and Google cheerfully tries to get me to into an accident on it every time.
As someone who primarily bikes and walks these days, both apps are equally bad in this regard, as it’s clearly an after thought that anyone would do anything other than drive. I’m usually mad at whatever app last tried to kill me, but to Apple’s credit, they have consistently responded when I’ve reported dangerous routing where Google has not.
You should try Organic Maps or one of the other OpenStreetMap-based apps then
I sure wish this rumor is true.
Apple Maps seems to have been designed for commuters. If it thinks a route is 10 seconds faster it will try to send you that way.
If you are driving a 12’ tall Class A motorhome from PA to FL that time savings feature becomes a problem because there are some roads you do not want to travel on!
I often take a longer/slower route because it is easier driving with less chance for sitting in traffic because of an accident. I have spent many hours sitting still on I-75. Accidents happen fast and you are sitting still before it gets reported on the app.
Also I have been taken down dirt roads instead of four lane highways by Apple Maps. That gets me upset too.
The Guides in Apple Maps are a pain to create and really can’t be used as a route without fiddling with it while you’re driving.
I have tried the other map apps and I end up going back to Apple Maps because of the interface - I just don’t like the other ones. That’s just my preference.
I am retired and not in a hurry. I don’t need to know “where the cops are hiding” because I am not breaking the law.
Apple Maps seems to have been designed for commuters. If it thinks a route is 10 seconds faster it will try to send you that way.
If you are driving a 12’ tall Class A motorhome from PA to FL that time savings feature becomes a problem because there are some roads you do not want to travel on!
I often take a longer/slower route because it is easier driving with less chance for sitting in traffic because of an accident. I have spent many hours sitting still on I-75. Accidents happen fast and you are sitting still before it gets reported on the app.
Also I have been taken down dirt roads instead of four lane highways by Apple Maps. That gets me upset too.
The Guides in Apple Maps are a pain to create and really can’t be used as a route without fiddling with it while you’re driving.
I have tried the other map apps and I end up going back to Apple Maps because of the interface - I just don’t like the other ones. That’s just my preference.
I am retired and not in a hurry. I don’t need to know “where the cops are hiding” because I am not breaking the law.
This drives me nuts. Take one turn it didn't tell you to and it snaps back to whatever route it thinks is best. That bit me a bunch of times on a road trip a few years ago where we were trying to stay off a huge and congested highway. We weren't in a huge hurry and preferred to enjoy the drive. But every time we stopped for gas or something, it would reroute.
I don't have very many issues with Apple Maps, but this is definitely the biggest one for me.
Definitely part of Apple's pervasive "We know best. You're welcome." attitude.
I now use Apple Maps over Google Maps 90% of the time. It's taken forever, but Apple Maps has slowly been catching up, and with every release, it gets closer and closer. While people can nitpick back and forth on which is better, and why Google Maps is the superior navigation tool (which it still is), I choose Apple Maps for one reason and one reason only: Google Maps tracks you and sells your data. While Apple may track you (it says it doesn't but who knows), they are not selling your location data to every business that cuts them a check. I'll gladly trade some annoying GUI hiccups for that privacy.
That being said, one area that I feel Apple Maps needs improvement is updating search results while moving across the map. For example, when I search for "Restaurants" Apple Maps will automatically give me results where I am located. Getting Apple Maps to only search an area of the map where I am not located can be a bit of a battle. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Additionally, Apple Maps is bad at updating the search results in real-time as you move the map away from your location. Sometimes the map will continue to update the restaurants as you scroll to the left or the right (with little pins popping up everywhere), but half of the time it just stops giving me results, and the map will remain blank. Google Maps excels at this.
Concerning the reviews and more specifically the Yelp integration, I've seen some people complain about that, and while Yelp is certainly a company with suspicious business practices, I believe all universal review websites are. I find Yelp's system to be 1000x more accurate than Google's rating system, which mysteriously always trends towards the positive. I swear, I've seen so many run-down, crack motels featured on Google with 4-5 star ratings, lol.
Apple does seem to be moving away from Yelp by incorporating Tripadvisor at times, and now their proprietary thumbs up/thumbs down review system. It's a bit of a mess not committing to a single review system though. It seems that Apple is slowly migrating to its own rating system, but as it stands, that review system is imperfect. Offering just a single thumbs up or down doesn't work for me. They need a sideways thumb. More times than not I run into a restaurant that isn't great, so they really don't deserve a thumbs up, but they aren't sooooo bad that I must curse them with a full thumbs down, as if I'm Commodus in Rome's Coliseum. It feels almost cruel to hit someone with a thumbs down for minor inconveniences, and therefore I just avoid ranking the restaurant. I think Apple needs to implement a sideways thumb.
That being said, one area that I feel Apple Maps needs improvement is updating search results while moving across the map. For example, when I search for "Restaurants" Apple Maps will automatically give me results where I am located. Getting Apple Maps to only search an area of the map where I am not located can be a bit of a battle. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Additionally, Apple Maps is bad at updating the search results in real-time as you move the map away from your location. Sometimes the map will continue to update the restaurants as you scroll to the left or the right (with little pins popping up everywhere), but half of the time it just stops giving me results, and the map will remain blank. Google Maps excels at this.
Concerning the reviews and more specifically the Yelp integration, I've seen some people complain about that, and while Yelp is certainly a company with suspicious business practices, I believe all universal review websites are. I find Yelp's system to be 1000x more accurate than Google's rating system, which mysteriously always trends towards the positive. I swear, I've seen so many run-down, crack motels featured on Google with 4-5 star ratings, lol.
Apple does seem to be moving away from Yelp by incorporating Tripadvisor at times, and now their proprietary thumbs up/thumbs down review system. It's a bit of a mess not committing to a single review system though. It seems that Apple is slowly migrating to its own rating system, but as it stands, that review system is imperfect. Offering just a single thumbs up or down doesn't work for me. They need a sideways thumb. More times than not I run into a restaurant that isn't great, so they really don't deserve a thumbs up, but they aren't sooooo bad that I must curse them with a full thumbs down, as if I'm Commodus in Rome's Coliseum. It feels almost cruel to hit someone with a thumbs down for minor inconveniences, and therefore I just avoid ranking the restaurant. I think Apple needs to implement a sideways thumb.
Well... I have some suggestions for Apple maps, TomTom and Google:
- For anyone that uses voice navigation, an option to auto-mute the voice navigation within known areas like your own neighbourhood. When a few miles near home and the route is normal (without traffic jams) I don't need the voice anymore and it would be convenient to turn it off automatically. Same when I leave: turn it on when I'm out of my neighbourhood or when the route is different due to traffic.
- The option to mark certain areas to avoid as much as possible for any route. Some streets/roads may be the fastest, but also the most stressful due to aggressive drivers or simply because it is a bad neighbourhood.
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Not even the big cities. They came to Tampa/St. Pete and we have Look Around here. It’s not even officially recognized by Apple on their website haha.
It’s very good now. I prefer it over Google Maps, especially for driving directions.
I travel all over the US in my RV and only use Apple Maps. I will never install Google maps on any device