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Google Maps Rolling Out These New Navigation Features This Week
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That's a wrong question. The right one is: why should you care if Google makes money on marketing or not? Firstly, the entire internet is financed by marketing. Then, there is the question that people complaining about Google marketing never can answer: how exactly does it affect you?
What about hours of operations, parking, user reviews, links to business' web sites etc? You don't use any of it? Google Maps' ability to find the place you are interested in is priceless.
Well probably not, but what are you paying for services like Google Maps? Do they owe you free software and services for some reason? That's the trade off you have to decide for yourself. Having said that it can be argued Apple sells you privacy features and easy integration of software across devices to lock you into their ecosystem long term. Forever paying a premium for non user upgradable hardware for the benefits. Either model, you are paying, so you make your choice.
The problem with Apple Maps isn’t that it can’t find something, it’s that it finds that something in a wrong location and proudly leads you to it.
Don’t worry, your wireless service provider or your car company will do that too.
Use Apple Maps. I've been using it quite happily for years. I also use DuckDuckGo rather than Google as a search engine, and don't use GMail. It's not that hard to mostly avoid Google.
That is your opinion. User experience matters a lot to me and many other users, and that's an area where Apple Maps is miles ahead of Google Maps imo.
Almost never is still too much.
I go on business trips often and that’s where AM failed me quite spectacularly a few times. Granted, this all happened over a past few years, but still…
- Go to a meeting with a new client. AM gets me to the right place… only on the opposite side of a major freeway. I could clearly see their building across six lanes of heavy traffic. The next exit was several miles away.
- Stopped at a gas station on the way to the airport. AM suddenly decided to recalculate my route and sent me to a restricted service drive on the opposite end of the airport (do you see a pattern here?). Almost missed my flight.
- Had a customer who moved to a new facility two years prior. AM still showed them at their old address and haven’t fixed it despite several calls and emails. And it’s not some small shop, it’s a large manufacturing facility. GM found it just fine.
But, all things said, I need to get where I’m going. That’s the most important task of a map app. And AM is still not quite reliable. It may get me to my destination 99.9% of time but that .1% may be a real problem. GM gets me to destination every time.
GM isn’t 100% for me. Local driving it doesn’t matter, but in unfamiliar territory I always cross check the navigation against a different source. YMMV.
I just saw a YT video comparing apple maps with google maps. The reviewer gave them equal points but there were differences in the approach.
I am curious if anyone has data on the number of errors in either system.
As long as it works, I'd prefer AM over GM if only because I like the interface more, plus Apple's privacy policies. But I just can't trust it in the "unfamiliar territory" as you mentioned. I've been using maps of one kind or another for at least 14 years that I can recall, and in all that time Google Maps hasn't left me stranded once, while Apple Maps still can't figure out where it is I am going every now and then.
Here's the latest that I forgot to mention, happened just a week ago. Coming home from a weekend getaway in Northern Michigan, wanted to stop at a restaurant for dinner. "Hey Siri find directions to Fred's of Roscommon". Nope. "Find Fred's Restaurant". Nope, it is pulling up something completely unrelated. After a few failed attempts, "Hey Siri, find Fred's of Roscommon using Google Maps". Bingo, from the first try.
Google Maps once told me to use any lane of the 6-lanes-each-way freeway I was currently on, to make an immediate U-turn.
Apple Maps was rushed out the door because (IIRC) Google wanted access to creepy amounts of information about people using the Maps app, when the contract came up for renegotiation. Since then, it has improved by several orders of magnitude. I think a lot of the people claiming that Apple Maps is bad and Google Maps is great... haven't really tried using Apple Maps in a very long time.
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I've actually had a live activity appear on my iPhone when getting directions but not starting a navigation - it seems to be a work in progress.
No proper support of third party software is exactly what makes the Apple Watch so useless.
Unless you try to convince people that Apple Maps is better than Google Maps. lol.
Having a small Google Maps map would only be reinventing the wheel if Apple Maps weren‘t a ***** wheel.
Speaking of Apple software on the Apple Watch. I simply can’t delete the apps I don’t need in order to make it easier for me to find and open the apps relevant to me. Try deleting the following apps from your watch: Stocks, news, Apple Music, podcasts, home, books etc.
Ridiculous.
Don‘t get me started how even more useless Apple Watch is in China. No wonder Apple is not doing well there…
I still prefer Waze, every time I have to use google maps too many times it thinks I'm walking and there seems to be no way to default to drive
What do you define as proper support? I don't think there's anything stopping Google from adding a map to their app but themselves.
I don't care to rehash the console-wars-esque maps debate. It's a matter of preference at this point. In my experience stateside, Google Maps is dog water, and I hate its interface. Waze is great for roadtrips (aside from the lack of timezone switching). Apple Maps works just fine for the rest. I found AM lacking in Europe, but this was five years ago, and it may have improved for all I know. YMMV.
I had all of these deleted from my Watch, aside from Apple Music and Home. I was able to do so by deleting them on my iPhone, as I don't use those apps. Same with Cycle Tracking, as males don't have ovulation cycles.
I’ve heard that it’s Apple preventing third party developers to use said feature. Wear OS supports the mini map.
Apart from not properly being able to save spots in Apple Maps, it’s suicidal to use it as a cyclist.
In cities where cycling directions aren’t supported (e.g. Manchester, UK) and cities where one might prefer walking directions whilst riding a bike (e.g. Tokyo), Apple Maps switches in the middle of a trip from walking directions to driving directions often without telling you. In Manchester and Tokyo are motorways (highways) going through the city and Apple Maps has led me several times onto those because it started assuming I was a car due to my speed and switched from walking to driving without announcement.
This is no joke.
Brilliant idea. I hadn’t thought of this. Will allow me to get rid of at least a few. Cheers.
Incidentally,
how do you manage to have Siri navigate to someone in your contacts using Apple Maps in iOS 18.1 or even better just asking your Apple Watch?
If I say, “Siri navigate to Example Name”, Siri merely does a Google search even though Example Name is one of my contacts (in my address book).
Is it just my Apple Watch/iPhone or do you face the same issue?
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I suppose this could be a positive if it stops google maps nav from constantly saying "turn east, turn north" etc as you navigate the parking lot. Now if I could just get it to AI it's way into understanding I am going around it's bad directions because of a Marathon or a parade, and no amount of "take a U turn" will change that.
I use Apple Maps in the car, and get no feedback from my Apple Watch of any sort. I believe I toggled some settings away from the default to get it like that - check the Watch app on your iPhone, and scroll down to Maps. There's a set of toggles in there for "Turn Alerts" in various scenarios (driving, walking, etc.).
I do use the Maps app on my Apple Watch in the car on rare occasions - usually it's when I want to be alerted to an upcoming turn after I've handed my phone over to my niece so she can DJ.
Yeah I'd have to check when I get another watch lol I have a cracked screen so it's just a wide white line right in the middle but the touch still works.. but yeah I just don't need to be alerted on my watch while in carplay.