Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple Maps vs. Google Maps vs. Waze

arturrr.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 293 posts

Re: Apple Maps vs. Google Maps vs. Waze

#41

Post by BatFastard »

erichurkman wrote: post #4

This matches my experience trying to use Waze, multiple times, over multiple years. Sometimes the "creative" routes would seem to save time, other times exiting the freeway to take a surface street would have me sitting at the offramp for 10 minutes... possibly with all of the other Waze users who were routed that way. There's also a familiarity level of safety taking known routes. Sure, cutting down some residential…

I have had waze same me hours on trips. Reporting accidents a few miles ahead of me that have just happened. Often waze takes me on routes that are just slightly faster, but they keep me moving which I prefer.

Re: Apple Maps vs. Google Maps vs. Waze

#42

Post by radicaldreamer »

erichurkman wrote: post #4

This matches my experience trying to use Waze, multiple times, over multiple years. Sometimes the "creative" routes would seem to save time, other times exiting the freeway to take a surface street would have me sitting at the offramp for 10 minutes... possibly with all of the other Waze users who were routed that way. There's also a familiarity level of safety taking known routes. Sure, cutting down some residential…

It's just scary cutting through streets in SOMA which are two lanes of heavy traffic each way because Waze thinks it's fast to go down a narrow alley.

Re: Apple Maps vs. Google Maps vs. Waze

#43

Post by what_ever »

Isn't 120 rides too few to come to a conclusion? Specially with different routes, different conditions?

It would have been better to see if they all told to take the same route and then compare the predicted time as well as actual time. It's possible that it started raining in one of the case or there was an accident, which added a lot of time to the predicted time.

FWIW, I use Google Maps and Waze alternately. I always arrive a minute or two earlier than the GMaps predictions. It's easy to note this from the summary page after you complete the ride. Waze, sadly, doesn't provide any summary. No idea about Apple Maps as I use Android.

Disc: Googler.

Re: Apple Maps vs. Google Maps vs. Waze

#44

Post by cromwellian »

Waze pointing out police and road hazards has saved my bacon a lot. Sometimes it routes me wrong, but sometimes I distrusted it's recommendation to go through a side street, only to slam into a huge traffic jam that it was routing me around.

Nowadays, I use Waze but look at the route, and if it is overcomplicated, I look to see if it did it for obvious reasons (traffic jams).

Apple Maps is pretty awful for me, it doesn't give enough detail on turns (like what lane to be in), and its POI database sucks. Too many times I've typed in the name of a place that's local and its first suggestions are in another state hundreds of miles away. In non-US/European countries, like if you're driving in South America, don't even bother.

Re: Apple Maps vs. Google Maps vs. Waze

#45

Post by rconti »

jacksmith21006 wrote: post #2

Here is the best comparison I have seen with Apple maps and Google maps hands down. https://www.justinobeirne.com/google-maps-moat/ Google Maps's Moat - Justin O'Beirne

I know this is a popular resource, and I can't argue with the author's conclusions on what he points out, but I am CONSTANTLY let down by Google Maps' choices of which buildings to visualize and label. Apple Maps does a WORSE job of showing every building but a vastly superior job of providing context and labels that make sense to me. I've looked at Google Maps views of areas I know quite well and been completely unable to 'place' myself there and understand what I'm looking at, because it's so detached from reality. I obviously am not good at putting this into words, but I encourage you to look at a local shopping district in the same level of zoom detail on each and compare.

EDIT: Because I'll rightfully be criticized for not providing examples, I took a few screenshots of the movie theater complex in downtown Redwood City. In the first example, showing several blocks, Google shows 3 businesses by name, and one unlabeled restaurant. How on earth is this the gold standard? Apple Maps shows VASTLY more business names, far more detail on buildings, etc.

For the second set of pictures, zoomed in to the theater complex itself (1 block), Google shows VASTLY more building detail about things I simply don't care about -- it's all one structure, there's no way to walk between building units, so why do I care which one is distinct? Google makes it look like there's an alleyway there, and there simply isn't. Sure, maybe it's an internal hallway for the parking garage, so congrats for having that detail, but it's not helpful as a pedestrian. Again, far fewer businesses are listed (though their locations are probably more precise/useful because you can tell how many units are between each, where apple's are sorta thrown around for no reason (no, Vitality Bowls is not actually on the sidewalk, it's in the building like the others). The Google map does get credit for making a more prominent display of the Redwood Downtown 20 and XD movie theater which is the bigger landmark, where Apple might leave you wondering "hey, what's this Sagamore Enterprises building all about?"

Just an example, but this happens to me ALL the time. I am constantly finding that Google isn't giving me the most important information, and then sometimes goes into excessive detail on something that either doesn't matter or is totally misleading.

https://imgur.com/a/9Mlbz

Re: Apple Maps vs. Google Maps vs. Waze

#46

Post by jinonoel »

epberry wrote: post #18

One feature I miss in navigation services is an ability to choose the “easy” route. For example, I live in the Midwest and usually I’d rather take the interstate, even if it’s 5 minutes longer, than a series of country roads. Obviously you can choose this when you know where you’re going but forget it if you’re in an unfamiliar area. A simple heuristic for this would be which route involves the fewest different roads…

That would be a great feature. Where I live Waze usually decides that the quickest route is through a series of side streets through less than ideal areas in the city. There should be a way tell Waze that there's a reason few cars pass through there

Re: Apple Maps vs. Google Maps vs. Waze

#47

Post by radicaldreamer »

will_walker wrote: post #17

This is great. Waze provides an additional service here - pointing out police locations, which is extremely useful over long stretches of highway. I wonder if google Maps' performance is due in part to Waze users being shunted off of main highways? Another weird though - if Waze is spoon feeding you ads, don't they want you to drive as long as possible?

You can leave it running in the background to do this while routing with Google Maps in the foreground, it'll call out speed traps and hazards and police with it's voice in the background

Re: Apple Maps vs. Google Maps vs. Waze

#48

Post by eli »

tedivm wrote: post #19
erichurkman wrote: post #4

This matches my experience trying to use Waze, multiple times, over multiple years. Sometimes the "creative" routes would seem to save time, other times exiting the freeway to take a surface street would have me sitting at the offramp for 10 minutes... possibly with all of the other Waze users who were routed that way. There's also a familiarity level of safety taking known routes. Sure, cutting down some residential…

I feel like the "creative" routes have gotten so much worse too. Some of my favorite examples- * Driving from Fremont to Berkeley and it took me over half of the bay bridge to Treasure Island, where it had me loop around and get back on and over to 80. * From Union City to Hayward, where it had me take a street that had not finished being built. * In what should have been a 30 minute trip but took three times that, W…

It used to suggest I make a left from a tiny DC side street onto a 4 lane road with cross traffic that doesn't stop... During rush hour. Technically a shorter route that avoids traffic, but only faster if you're a driver with much less concern for personal safety than I.

Re: Apple Maps vs. Google Maps vs. Waze

#49

Post by koolba »

foobarian wrote: post #27
erichurkman wrote: post #4

This matches my experience trying to use Waze, multiple times, over multiple years. Sometimes the "creative" routes would seem to save time, other times exiting the freeway to take a surface street would have me sitting at the offramp for 10 minutes... possibly with all of the other Waze users who were routed that way. There's also a familiarity level of safety taking known routes. Sure, cutting down some residential…

I wish Waze (or others) had a "lookback report" after arriving at the destination, where they picked all users near me at the origin, filtered out those that ended up near me at the end, and grouped by different routes taken. It would take a certain user base size to get this to work. But it would be awesome to see an apples-to-apples A/B comparison of routes, and once and for all answer the question "was I a fool to…

I’m surprised they haven’t added an always on microphone feature to the app yet. Some like, “Hey Waze- Pothole!”. I doubt the majority user base would care about Google listening to your every word.

I don’t use it myself and get downright scared when a driver starts flicking the app to report a pot hole. The privacy aspect might be worth it vs dying in a car crash.

Re: Apple Maps vs. Google Maps vs. Waze

#50

Post by freshyill »

What I like about Waze: All the data other than the route itself, he location of speed traps most importantly.

What I like about Apple Maps: The actual on-screen navigation experience. I find it’s the clearest about which lane I need to be in.

Waze is terrible about weirdly-shaped intersections and ramps, both in the maps themselves and the instructions about where I need to be to turn/exit.

If you think all the alleys and left turns are annoying, that’s nothing. On I-270, outside DC, it often has me bouncing back and forth between the local and express lanes, for no reason. Probably because some other user nearby in each lane is going a slightly different speed.

Post reply on HN