Russia. Apple maps are useless compared to Yandex or Google maps.
Is there any non-Russian app that works better than Russian one in Russia anyway? ;-)
Ask HN: Apple maps vs. Google maps today?
41–50 of 62 posts
Re: Ask HN: Apple maps vs. Google maps today?
#42Apple Maps is good enough for me ninety-five times out of a hundred (in the UK), and it's a lot faster than Google Maps. Between that and Galileo on iOS (OSM data), I'm pretty covered though I do keep Google Maps lying around just in case. Apple Maps has improved by at least an order of magnitude since it was first released.
Re: Ask HN: Apple maps vs. Google maps today?
#43Apple Maps is fine. The rendering is still slightly worse than Google Maps when it comes to putting relevant information in the viewport (street names, primarily.) But the search ... good grief, the search still sucks donkey balls through a molecular straw. It seems to lack any sense of your local context and location - which is kinda relevant for maps! e.g. frequently when I used to search for "charing cross" whilst…
Google Maps is heinous for putting street names on all the little back streets, and leaving them off the big arterial roads that might actually give you a chance of orienting yourself. It's really frustrating.
Re: Ask HN: Apple maps vs. Google maps today?
#44We've been sailing Europe, so had plenty of opportunity to compare maps in different locations.
Google maps is great for navigating cities you're unfamiliar with. It gives you public transport information (not complete, missing buses here in Porto for example, but pretty good), points of interest (with funny gaps though), place reviews with photos and the search is really good. On my aging iPhone 4S both the app and the maps and search results load faster than Apple maps. The web version has recently gotten more horrible and is the usual Javascript overloaded catastrophe that just doesn't work at all on crappy internet connections (which is the norm when traveling). I have a bookmark for the old (now called "lite") version. The phone app is okay but has the horrid habit of nagging you ceaselessly about wanting you to log in and share your everything with Google.
Apple maps search is _atrocious_. Even pasting in an exact address, it will often find some completely irrelevant spot in a small town in the US instead of anything over here in Europe where I am. Searching for things like "library" is even more hopeless, it'll show me something like "Library road" in a village in Cornwall rather than the library in Porto just around the corner from where I'm standing. The only time I ever use it is if I want to show people on a far zoomed out view where we've been, because the OS X client is faster than Google maps web and really nice to navigate by touchpad.
Bing maps has often more recent and higher resolution satellite images than any of the others. I can't speak of any of their other features as I only ever use it via SAS.planet, but when I want to check my nautical charts with satellite images I often end up using Bing's data.
Re: Ask HN: Apple maps vs. Google maps today?
#45Apple is still pretty far behind, in my view. Here’s an excellent in-depth comparison: https://www.justinobeirne.com/cartography-comparison/
Very good comparision, thx for posting.
From using both iOS maps and Google maps on streets in NYC and SF - I like both. In case iOS maps is light on detail I open Google maps or Uber app to inspect things nearby.
Re: Ask HN: Apple maps vs. Google maps today?
#46Apple is still pretty far behind, in my view. Here’s an excellent in-depth comparison: https://www.justinobeirne.com/cartography-comparison/
It's not complete without the equally amazing followup https://www.justinobeirne.com/a-year-of-google-maps-and-appl...
Strangely, Patricia's Green is now fully fleshed out with paths and green (at least on iOS 11b8.)
Re: Ask HN: Apple maps vs. Google maps today?
#47The biggest issue that I (being in Melbourne, Australia) have with Apple Maps is that it is incredibly slow. It was barely usable because of the speed on my iPhone (even on 4G) before I removed the app, and is pretty much unusable on my Macbook. I’m talking up to a minute before an actual map would display, and often up to 30 seconds when zooming in. I know quite a few other people have the same problem - even the Ma…
You might want to check out Eraser, made by Mapzen. Eraser is a Google Maps like app that uses OpenStreetMap data and is backed solely open source software and open data. It's a little rough around the edges (especially when it comes to transit routing). https://github.com/mapzen/eraser-map https://mapzen.com/blog/erasermap-beta/
Thanks, will have a look.
Re: Ask HN: Apple maps vs. Google maps today?
#48I use navigation every day on the iPhone. Google maps is superior in my view (in the USA) over Apple maps because:
1) You can turn off the voice navigation. 2) Google maps show you which lane to be in for an oncoming turn. 3) Google maps have a better "sense" of which lane you are in when you are in an initial turn. Apple maps seem to get lost and start to re-route.
Re: Ask HN: Apple maps vs. Google maps today?
#49The biggest issue that I (being in Melbourne, Australia) have with Apple Maps is that it is incredibly slow. It was barely usable because of the speed on my iPhone (even on 4G) before I removed the app, and is pretty much unusable on my Macbook. I’m talking up to a minute before an actual map would display, and often up to 30 seconds when zooming in. I know quite a few other people have the same problem - even the Ma…
I'm in Adelaide, Australia and I've never had this problem; I get maps within a second on both iOS and macOS, ADSL and LTE (Telstra in both cases).
(As an aside, from what I've heard, public transport support being terrible in Vic is mostly on PTV's head, not Apple or Google.)
Re: Ask HN: Apple maps vs. Google maps today?
#50It depends on Region. But Generally speaking Google is still the best, and Apple is (only) good enough for certain places.*
I was searching for news on iPhone NFC-F / Suica, ( Simply the best NFC tech there is and has been for the last 20 years and still have not picked up stream due to various stupid reasons ) I stumpled upon
* I dont know the site owner nor affiliate with it.
It basically explain in details how crap the Apple Map in Tokyo are. And it is the same in many other places in SEA Region. My guess is that most part of EU aren't any better.
Edit: I am not sure if anyone on HN can shine any light on the process. Why do Apple buy data from third party sources and not at the same time create their own? And if Google buy data sources as well?