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

231–240 of 293 posts

Re: Apple Maps vs. Google Maps vs. Waze

#231

Post by virtualritz »

I can not second these findings for European cities I regularly drive in myself: Berlin, Milan, Paris, London and Rome.

I don't know about Apple but Google at least always tries to route using functional class (FC) 1 & 2 roads. Waze uses whatever.

For European cities this makes a huge difference; particularly during rush hours.

Waze also routes me around traffic lights using FC >2 roads. I've never seen Google do that.

On a side note: Every Uber I took in 2016, 2017 & 2018 in the aforementioned cities, plus Belgrade and Warshaw, was using Waze.

Re: Apple Maps vs. Google Maps vs. Waze

#232

Post by nogridbag »

gerdesj wrote: post #183
mdip wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the disadvantages of having round-abouts everywhere is that they aren't as well marked as they are in the states. In my area, they finally started putting these in where we used to have four-way stops and the traffic flow is much better. However, people in the states are utterly baffled by them since we don't encounter them regularly. So there's usually a sign almost a half-mile back explaining what lane you n…

Roundabouts in the US? - Amateurs: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5626214,-1.7700658,3a,75y,... However for pant wetting excitement in your car, I also recommend la Place du Concorde in Paris when its busy (its always busy). Its not a roundabout as such, more a loose agreement.

Wow, my mind is blown. It's roundabout inception.

Are these common?

This is so confusing I had to view it from top down perspective and I still have no clue how you would navigate through this.

It looks like a vehicle approaching the Magic Roundabout via A4312 can use the outer ring to exit via B4289 or Fleming Way but any other exit the vehicle must spin in circles to enter the inner ring. I give up.

Re: Apple Maps vs. Google Maps vs. Waze

#233

Post by freehunter »

ctdonath wrote: post #194
iainmerrick wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you put up with that? Why not just use a different app?

Most of the time I do. I only use Waze when on long-haul freeways, concerned about police & other traffic issues. I usually use Apple Maps as general runabout guidance, Google Maps when really concerned about best/scenic routes, Google Earth when interested in topography.

Whenever I hear people (and I hear it a lot) saying they use Waze to avoid police, I never really understand it. Waze is all user-reported, right? It's not a radar detector. So even if 100% of drivers are Wave users and they report 100% of police waiting at speed traps, there always has to be the first Waze user to encounter that cop without warning from their app. And that 100% number is a huge assumption.

I find the more fool-proof way to avoid being pulled over for speeding is to not speed in the first place, at which point both Google Maps and Apple Maps both report any other type of traffic slowdown just as good as Waze without the annoying advertisements.

Re: Apple Maps vs. Google Maps vs. Waze

#234

Post by freehunter »

forgotmypw wrote: post #203
maccard wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Try driving around in New Jersey, especially close to New York. There are some exits, for example, where the exit is two lanes, but one of the lanes splits off from the main lane, but you better be in that left lane because you have to keep left right after you take that right exit... and then take another right after that. Lane guidance is very helpful in these situations.

You get this north of Chicago a lot too... on I-294 merge into the right two lanes, keep left, pass the exit, merge into the right lane, keep right, merge left to finally get onto I-90.

I drive it several times a year and I still need lane guidance to help.

Re: Apple Maps vs. Google Maps vs. Waze

#235

Post by hermitdev »

mcphage wrote: post #61
duxup wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a "I saved a minute or two (maybe) but driving down odd unfamiliar streets wasn't that fast and kinda a hassle" factor. The mathematically better path is sometimes not THAT much more efficient or simply not more efficient for us humans even if it is just a driving preference. I really hate too many cuts through neighborhoods.

Yeah. And even without considering unfamiliarity, simpler (in terms of number of steps) paths are better, even if they’re slightly slower.

Another thing none of the apps take into account (and it'd be hard to) is the quality and condition of the roads.

I live in the Chicago suburbs, and not all counties or towns/cities/villages care for their roads the same. The city I live in is pretty diligent about taking care of their roads, but adjacent cities aren't so much. Last winter, I spent nearly $1200 fixing alignment issues & replacing 2 tires that wore prematurely due to bad alignment. The bad alignment was due to a bent control rod from hitting potholes/frost heaves in the road. I can avoid most of that by staying on the highway for as long as possible and arriving maybe 5 minutes late some days.

A couple of weeks ago, we got hit with a pretty heavy snow storm, but not quite a blizzard. Google was telling me to go local the hole way to save 15 minutes over the highway. Except none of those local streets had seen a plow yet. Safer to stay on the highway as IDOT has the plows out continuously on days like that. Took me 2.5 hours to get home that night, but I least I got home safely and without damage to my car.

Re: Apple Maps vs. Google Maps vs. Waze

#236

Post by moate »

maccard wrote: post #184
QasimK wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would prevent speeding (but stop overtaking) on motorways, which I argue are the roads that need the least speed control. Speeding is probably more harmful on all other roads where you have pedestrians, cyclists and complex road layouts.

I agree, but if the goal is to simply stop speeding, it will stop it on motorways. Whether it has any safety benefits or not is incidental.

Well there's the problem. Why is that a goal. http://www.sehinc.com/news/truth-about-speed-limits-explaine...

Re: Apple Maps vs. Google Maps vs. Waze

#237

Post by cornholio »

nogridbag wrote: post #232
gerdesj wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Roundabouts in the US? - Amateurs: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5626214,-1.7700658,3a,75y,... However for pant wetting excitement in your car, I also recommend la Place du Concorde in Paris when its busy (its always busy). Its not a roundabout as such, more a loose agreement.

Wow, my mind is blown. It's roundabout inception. Are these common? This is so confusing I had to view it from top down perspective and I still have no clue how you would navigate through this. It looks like a vehicle approaching the Magic Roundabout via A4312 can use the outer ring to exit via B4289 or Fleming Way but any other exit the vehicle must spin in circles to enter the inner ring. I give up.

It's very simple: yield to people making a left from Shrivensham, then enter the first roundabout. The internal circle is not a roundabout, people already inside will yield to you. So you can continue going forward (over the KEEP CLEAR area) and navigate around the center anti-clockwise. You yield again to people from Shrivensham and depending on what exist you want you need to traverse another one or two roundabouts and exit the desired road.

That about rounds it up, I would say!

Re: Apple Maps vs. Google Maps vs. Waze

#238

Post by lolsal »

hokumguru wrote: post #76
lolsal wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What legal or ethical laws does it violate to have that data available?

You can buy a radar detector on amazon or $50, I'd say probably not many otherwise those would be much more regulated.

It's not illegal to know where police are, even if it may be illegal to operate a radar detector.

Re: Apple Maps vs. Google Maps vs. Waze

#239

Post by kimdcmason »

Humdeee wrote: post #230
ctdonath wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still miss the police warnings, but I also changed my driving habits to where I don't need them anymore. Hey, that's an idea: obey the law. [ETA: funny that this is being downvotes.]

Is it? Snarky and obvious comments generally will attract down votes. Those kind of comments become tiresome and dilute a discussion.

It didn't strike me as snarky at all, and it's also not obvious considering that many people want the police warnings so that they can break the law. Apparently complying with laws is seen as optional by a lot of folks, and the result is mass deaths and injury.

Police and red light camera warnings in Waze always struck me as both encouragement and enablement of deliberate law breaking.

Re: Apple Maps vs. Google Maps vs. Waze

#240

Post by takeda »

steveax wrote: post #96
seanp2k2 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love that waze let’s you at least specify a preference. Apple maps and Google Maps are too simple in this regard IMO. Ideally, for advanced users, you could choose 0-100 how to optimize for route “stickiness” (staying on the same roads) vs aggressive optimization for time. I’m guessing that the “difficult intetsections” in LA are e.g. two-way multi-lane streets with no left turn arrow (yield on green). How LA think…

Pretty sure from some limited sampling that waze is responsible for this cluster [1]. If you zoom in you can see the right-turn only sign at the intersection. What you cannot really see is that two blocks of cars waiting all have their left-turn signals on (well, the ones that bothered to signal). I really dislike some of the externalities created by waze. [1]: http://pangram.org/images/tacoma.jpg

This is easy to fix, you report a map problem in Waze and then follow up on a computer and mark that this turn only allows turning right. If needed you can provide this picture.

I already fixed several intersections this way.

That's assuming the problem is indeed with Waze and is not just asshole drivers. When I am in scenario when Waze made me make an illegal turn I report the map issue, turn the way sign suggests and wait for Waze to come up with a new route, so I'm surprised that no one did this yet in your area.

What's the intersection?

Post reply on HN