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Is Google Maps still better than Apple Maps?

Troneas

Troneas

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Oct 26, 2011
1,378
58
At the alternatives section.
recently ive noticed that apple maps have a much better quality of satellite images than google's - at least in my area. whilst google maps looks blurred, apple satellite images are sharp.


additionally, apple maps show far more information at first glance of nearby restaurants, shops, stations and what not via those little icons that are splattered throughout the screen.


i have thus began to wonder if its even worth having google maps on my phone still. ive used google turn by turn navegation once and it was fantastic, but havent tried apple's.


so what do you guys think? aside from errors in town locations in australia's outback or bridges sinking into the water, is google maps now really ahead of apple's in every day use?
 
For me it's strange. when they first came out they had better more up to date sattelite images of the area. Then say a couple of months ago, they look to be the exact same images google uses, which are much more out of date and actually less clear. Silly apple!
 
I've relied on apple maps since the start of the year and havent found it deficient vs google maps at all.
 
Apple maps is a great turn by turn system if you know your end destination. It's a terrible POI finder and in Ireland is truly awful at finding things like railway stations.
 
Troneas said:
recently ive noticed that apple maps have a much better quality of satellite images than google's - at least in my area. whilst google maps looks blurred, apple satellite images are sharp.


additionally, apple maps show far more information at first glance of nearby restaurants, shops, stations and what not via those little icons that are splattered throughout the screen.


i have thus began to wonder if its even worth having google maps on my phone still. ive used google turn by turn navegation once and it was fantastic, but havent tried apple's.


so what do you guys think? aside from errors in town locations in australia's outback or bridges sinking into the water, is google maps now really ahead of apple's in every day use?
Click to expand...

I think you have answered your own question. In any case, Apple's turn by turn has always been better than Google's. Probably its single best feature. Especially in combination with Siri. I love how you can just say "Take me home" or "Take me to Olive Garden" or whatever and it opens the map and starts the navigation automatically.
 
I think Apple has a little ways to go. I'm all for google maps. Google maps has been out for a long time now. You cant just create a map program and expect it to be the best of the best. Google has many more years of experience on this one.
 
Zcott said:
Apple maps is a great turn by turn system if you know your end destination. It's a terrible POI finder and in Ireland is truly awful at finding things like railway stations.
Click to expand...

Agreed turn by turn is amazing and almost perfect - POI and Satellite imagery is crap - my hometown is a giant pixel at the moment :(
 
Apples satellite imagery is diabolical here (UK, it's better in the south but up here it's terrible) and the POI database is almost non existent.

But we can't expect a 1 year old mapping service to be anywhere near as good as Googles. Within time I think Apple will be able to catch up, provided they plough enough resources into it that is.
 
Troneas said:
recently ive noticed that apple maps have a much better quality of satellite images than google's - at least in my area. whilst google maps looks blurred, apple satellite images are sharp.


additionally, apple maps show far more information at first glance of nearby restaurants, shops, stations and what not via those little icons that are splattered throughout the screen.


i have thus began to wonder if its even worth having google maps on my phone still. ive used google turn by turn navegation once and it was fantastic, but havent tried apple's.


so what do you guys think? aside from errors in town locations in australia's outback or bridges sinking into the water, is google maps now really ahead of apple's in every day use?
Click to expand...

What location are you? Every place I've seen was the opposite, Apple had less information on local POIs, and way poorer satellite imagery (SF Bay Area)
 
POI is pathetic. That's the only flaw that I experience, really. I wish it would allow you to select an offline area to cache (I know it kind of does that already, but a bigger area would be nice - say a few counties).
 
Apple maps has never let me down so Ive stuck with it with download another app if I dont need it
 
Troneas said:
care to elaborate?


im seriously wondering what i am missing.
Click to expand...

Directions that work reliably outside of california?


Seriously:
I did an international trip between July and September last year.

I relied on google maps in the following countries:

Germany
Austria
Switzerland
Italy
France
Hungary
Czech Republic
England
Ireland
Canada


I also use Google maps regularly in my home country of Australia.

Google maps was for the most part, reliable. It's pretty good in Australia, and its fairly rare that I get led astray and unable to find my destination. i never had any issues with it in the other countries above. admittedly, being a tourist it was mostly tourist type info i was looking for, but it worked.


Apple maps?

Hah. It has given me correct directions (around Perth, Western Australia and surrounds) twice. It fails more often than not, in fact I'll often use it now even though i know where i'm going to just to see how accurate/inaccurate it is. More often than not, it gets you to ghe general area and says "you are at your destination" when you're several kilometres away.

It looks cool with its 3d flyover stuff and high resolution display, but as far as navigation goes, in my experience, it's a joke.


I'm sure it works fine for some people in the states, but for others, and if you ever travel outside of the US, i'd be using Google maps to double-check and get yourself to your destination when apple maps fails.
 
Last edited:
In my experience, Apple Maps is far more reliable for actually loading and showing my location as well as directions. Google maps in an ipad browser is better for showing things like hotels, bus and train stations. The map apps MotionX and Mapster have their strengths as well- both have a scale so you can determine distances and Mapster is good when the 3G signal is weak or non existent. MotionX like Apple maps wil also show compass directions.

In practice I use all four.
 
So evident that most people who said Apple Maps worked for them lived in the states....
 
for me, Apple maps sucks at POI's but for actual address based routing it's FAR better than Google Maps. I've had the unfortunate experience of being directed a mile the wrong way by Google Maps on foot with heavy bags.. i was miffed!

Apple Maps isn't perfect but it seems they are using TomTom's address engine which seems a lot better.
 
In my area Apple Maps is just fine and since its integrated nicely I think it's better. I've had one issue and that's been corrected.

I'm sure there are people especially outside of the US who are still experiencing problems with Apple Maps and I don't blame them for being mad has heck. I would be.
 
Troneas said:
i have thus began to wonder if its even worth having google maps on my phone still. ive used google turn by turn navegation once and it was fantastic, but havent tried apple's.
Click to expand...
Then try both and compare for yourself. Worth and better are always highly subjective. I personally agree with others that have stated that Google seems to do better with POI's. I don't use either for routing or navigation and use TomTom instead.
 
I find in my area (Central NJ) Apple has slightly better address lookup, navigation, and traffic. However Apple’s POI database is frankly terrible. It’s so bad that even when it does return a result, it is frequently in the wrong location.
Google’s Maps and Nav are a hair worse than Apple’s, but they have by far the most comprehensive and accurate POI database.
I am using both frequently (I also use Waze and TomTom a lot). If I could only pick one, I would use Google because while it’s not the best at everything, it is not bad at anything. (Actually If I could only pick one, it would be TomTom, but it's not amoung the free options)
Even if Apple Maps are good enough in your area, I would still keep Google Maps installed as a backup. It’s a small download and I like the peace of mind from a second option on hand.
 
I think Google's search in maps is very hard to beat. I mean "search" is there core business after all.

I also think directions are still better on Google Maps. I still have Apple Maps taking me to destinations in a round about way.
 
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