Ask HN: What are some alternatives to Google maps? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What are some alternatives to Google maps?

#11

Post by roter » Sun, Sep 30, 2018, 5:02 PM UTC

JulienRbrt wrote: post #10

HERE[0] or OpenStreetMap[1] are both pretty complete and good for a user and developer usage. [0] https://www.here.com [1] https://www.openstreetmap.org

HERE was flagged for me by Disconnect Malvertising filter in uBlock Origin.

Re: Ask HN: What are some alternatives to Google maps?

#12

Post by sddfd » Sun, Sep 30, 2018, 5:02 PM UTC

vivekseth wrote: post #7

Apple Maps. I’ve been using it as my primary maps app for about an year and it’s been pretty good. I live in the bay area so YMMV if you live somewhere else.

I've used the Apple Maps navigation during the last vacation in Spain (rental car did only support Apple car play), and the navigation desperately needs some love. The worst things are:

- no support for roundabouts: it's really hard to determine where you have to leave, and the spoken hints are not helping. Why not displaying a top view of the intersection/roundabout like other navigation devices do?

- no good support for leaving a highway. If the connection is non-standard the speech commands seem off/hard to understand. Top view again would help.

Re: Ask HN: What are some alternatives to Google maps?

#13

Post by stephengillie » Sun, Sep 30, 2018, 5:02 PM UTC

jadavies wrote: post #6

Depending on your use cases OpenStreetMap may be suitable. For commercial use you probably need to set up your own servers but that can work to your advantage in that you're better insulated from random price hikes.

I tried OSM yesterday and it couldn't find my friend's house address in the map. Not that it couldn't navigate there - it said the location didn't exist. Google maps finds it right away.

Re: Ask HN: What are some alternatives to Google maps?

#14

Post by zpr » Sun, Sep 30, 2018, 5:04 PM UTC

gurpreet- wrote: post #3

From a user-perspective definitely Waze. It provides a great voice assistant and live updates from other users. Other Waze users are on-screen and you can chat to them. Other users can report roadblocks, broken down cars, traffic jams, slow-downs and even accidents long before any radio station finds out about them. It has places you can go to which are more accurate than that of Google Maps. Plus, it also shows you…

Waze is pretty cool, especially with alerting to the presence of nearby speedgunning cops, but the battery drain is too much for me to tolerate, not to mention the obnoxious "integration" with Spotify.

Re: Ask HN: What are some alternatives to Google maps?

#15

Post by se7entime » Sun, Sep 30, 2018, 5:10 PM UTC

https://osmand.net/

Re: Ask HN: What are some alternatives to Google maps?

#16

Post by lukeqsee » Sun, Sep 30, 2018, 5:10 PM UTC

For replacing their web API, my cofounder and I started a company to address many of the issues with Google Maps, starting with price and privacy. We have more issues to address, but we offer the necessities now and have expansion plans. We offer map tiles, static maps, and routing. (We had a mutual client that needed maps and we found no good alternatives, so we built the one we wanted.)

Check us out at https://stadiamaps.com

For consumer maps, Apple Maps is decent, Bing isn’t awful, and openstreetmap.org can meet some needs.

Re: Ask HN: What are some alternatives to Google maps?

#17

Post by rgovostes » Sun, Sep 30, 2018, 5:11 PM UTC

sddfd wrote: post #12

vivekseth wrote: post #7

Apple Maps. I’ve been using it as my primary maps app for about an year and it’s been pretty good. I live in the bay area so YMMV if you live somewhere else.

I've used the Apple Maps navigation during the last vacation in Spain (rental car did only support Apple car play), and the navigation desperately needs some love. The worst things are: - no support for roundabouts: it's really hard to determine where you have to leave, and the spoken hints are not helping. Why not displaying a top view of the intersection/roundabout like other navigation devices do? - no good suppor…

Not sure about the second, but the lane guidance icon does change to show a diagram of which exit to take, and you should also see the 2.5D map with a blue line showing the route on the actual map.

Re: Ask HN: What are some alternatives to Google maps?

#18

Post by ctpide » Sun, Sep 30, 2018, 5:12 PM UTC

harryf wrote: post #9

vivekseth wrote: post #7

Apple Maps. I’ve been using it as my primary maps app for about an year and it’s been pretty good. I live in the bay area so YMMV if you live somewhere else.

Unfortunately no public transport data in Switzerland in Apple Maps. Google Maps is hard to beat here

This is still my primary reason to use GMaps - I wish they would prioritize Public Transport in Apple Maps - SBB even provides an API they could easily use to get any schedule they need as far as i know.