Great article, but the sample size is too small to draw strong conclusions from those time differences.
Apple Maps vs. Google Maps vs. Waze
161–170 of 293 posts
Re: Apple Maps vs. Google Maps vs. Waze
#162This 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…
"Sure, cutting down some residential side streets might save 60 seconds, but no kid is going to run out into the road chasing a soccer ball on 101."
I believe you were the only one to mention this factor. It's kind of scary how few people prioritize lowering the chances of killing a kid.
Re: Apple Maps vs. Google Maps vs. Waze
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess it depends where, but in both London and Bordeaux (where I live and where I lived), on a dual carriage way you never know if right lane is right only, or right and straight ahead. Equally, the left lane could be left turn only, or left turn and straight ahead. And unless you've been here before and made the mistake (and got beeped at in the process) you probably won't know nor see the arrows as you're followi…
I had the same issue when I was living in Geneva, especially when driving in dense traffic. You'd be on the right lane of a two lane road, and suddenly it turns to the right while the left lane continues on straight. And obviously there'd be no way to quickly go to the left lane anymore because the traffic is severely stuck anyway. So then you end up driving in the wrong direction, still stuck in traffic, and have to…
Don't the street signs give you an indication that a lane branches off?
Re: Apple Maps vs. Google Maps vs. Waze
#164My everyday use case for navigation is along the lines of having a buddy tell me to avoid a certain route, due to traffic.
I've tried Google Maps and Waze (as well as Google's dashboard thing which keeps a semi-permanent time estimate pinned to some area on your phone), but these all miss the main point in my use case - I only need an detour away from my daily commute maybe twice a month. On the rest of the days, I know how to drive home, thanks. This is not enough for me to be semi-permanently firing up heavy apps to check the route. A simple thing which says "hey, I've noticed you just got in your car, and you're probably heading home - don't take highway X" would be nearly perfect.
Re: Apple Maps vs. Google Maps vs. Waze
#165My everyday use case for navigation is along the lines of having a buddy tell me to avoid a certain route, due to traffic. I've tried Google Maps and Waze (as well as Google's dashboard thing which keeps a semi-permanent time estimate pinned to some area on your phone), but these all miss the main point in my use case - I only need an detour away from my daily commute maybe twice a month. On the rest of the days, I k…
Google Now, despite it's abandonware status, solves this use case by telling me when my commute has an incident.
Re: Apple Maps vs. Google Maps vs. Waze
#166I used to be a huge Waze fan, and I do still use it, but both Apple Maps and Google Maps provide much better UX in a lot of ways: I really miss lane guidance, for instance. I think Waze still has the best traffic guidance, but I'm pretty sure the number of times I've clicked "yes, now that you've shown me this ad, I would like you to stop the route I'm on now and take me 17 minutes out of my way to go to the nearest…
> I really miss lane guidance, for instance Can I ask why? Having driven in both the US and europe and used GMaps in both places, I've found the lane guidance to be borderline useless. For the most part, lanes are intuitive (turning right - right lane), and when they're not, Google often gets them wrong.
It's intuitive, until it isn't. I can from the top of my head cite various autobahn crossings in Germany where you need to keep on the left to ultimately go right because you're going through an underpass: The A81 crossing in Heilbronn coming from Heidelberg, the crossing at Dreieck Funkturm in Berlin coming from Potsdam, ...
It's also often useful to know how many lanes can be used for a turn, etc, so you can switch lanes early.
Re: Apple Maps vs. Google Maps vs. Waze
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had the same issue when I was living in Geneva, especially when driving in dense traffic. You'd be on the right lane of a two lane road, and suddenly it turns to the right while the left lane continues on straight. And obviously there'd be no way to quickly go to the left lane anymore because the traffic is severely stuck anyway. So then you end up driving in the wrong direction, still stuck in traffic, and have to…
Don't the street signs give you an indication that a lane branches off?
Not always, but perhaps I misremember. It's usually printed on the road itself though, but you can't always see that because other cars are queued on top of it...
Re: Apple Maps vs. Google Maps vs. Waze
#168My everyday use case for navigation is along the lines of having a buddy tell me to avoid a certain route, due to traffic. I've tried Google Maps and Waze (as well as Google's dashboard thing which keeps a semi-permanent time estimate pinned to some area on your phone), but these all miss the main point in my use case - I only need an detour away from my daily commute maybe twice a month. On the rest of the days, I k…
Google Now, despite it's abandonware status, solves this use case by telling me when my commute has an incident.
Thanks for the tip, I will check it out. From a quick read, it still sounds like the information is a pull (from my perspective, so I'll have to keep checking it), rather than the app notifying me when traffic is horrible?
Re: Apple Maps vs. Google Maps vs. Waze
#169My everyday use case for navigation is along the lines of having a buddy tell me to avoid a certain route, due to traffic. I've tried Google Maps and Waze (as well as Google's dashboard thing which keeps a semi-permanent time estimate pinned to some area on your phone), but these all miss the main point in my use case - I only need an detour away from my daily commute maybe twice a month. On the rest of the days, I k…
It's the same for weather apps. It would be cool to just get a notification when about to head out: "hey, you might want to take a scarf with you today, it's a bit chilly!"
Re: Apple Maps vs. Google Maps vs. Waze
#170My everyday use case for navigation is along the lines of having a buddy tell me to avoid a certain route, due to traffic. I've tried Google Maps and Waze (as well as Google's dashboard thing which keeps a semi-permanent time estimate pinned to some area on your phone), but these all miss the main point in my use case - I only need an detour away from my daily commute maybe twice a month. On the rest of the days, I k…
Google Maps has commute updates. If you tell it what your commute is, on Android anyway, you'll get a discrete notification telling you how long the route home is, and a very quick summary of what route to take (for me it says either the name of the highway I take, or the name of the longest non-highway road on the alternative route). It works well and doesn't require you to actively check the complete route.
If there are major incidents and your route home is much longer than usual, you should get a more visible notification.