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

Apple delivers a new redesigned Maps for users in the United States

apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 476 posts

Re: Apple delivers a new redesigned Maps for users in the United States

#301

Post by jeromegv »

slavik81 wrote: post #284
protomyth wrote: post #19

At this point, I absolutely hate when people use Apple Maps to find our community college. Apple just plain refuses to acknowledge the town we are located in exists. It also ignores all businesses on the reservation and points to the local Coca-Cola bottling location as the closest grocery store. I've filed bugs going back years and no changes. Privacy and UI cannot overcome really poor data.

Google has these sorts of problems too. It fails at correctly parsing examples straight out of the Canada Post Addressing Guidelines. [1] Put in "10-123 Main St, Montreal QC H3Z 2Y7" into Google Maps and it will take you to "10 Main St, Montreal QC H3Z 5X3" Or, rather, it would if that was a real address. The correct building would be to "123 Main St, Montreal QC H3Z 2Y7". [1]: https://www.canadapost.ca/tools/pg/manu…

Yeah, I copy pasted a postal address into Waze a few months ago. Little did I know! Waze sent me to the wrong spot and ignored the Canadian convention. Thought this was an odd mistake but now that you say it, i'll avoid it entirely.

Re: Apple delivers a new redesigned Maps for users in the United States

#302

Post by selimthegrim »

pgm8705 wrote: post #3

Apple Maps has come a long way since its disastrous initial release. For about a year now, I have rarely used Google Maps. I typically find Apple Map's routing to be just as effective, even for avoiding traffic, accidents, etc.

They finally updated buildings in New Orleans that had been demolished in the 90s well before Katrina but are still giving a dangerous routing from the west bank of the river to downtown that you will get ticketed for if police will see you do it. The alternate ramp has been complete since 1992.

Re: Apple delivers a new redesigned Maps for users in the United States

#303

Post by selimthegrim »

pfranz wrote: post #224
TheHypnotist wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried it. But then for some reason Apple Maps asked me to U-Turn on the Garden State Parkway. That's not an option. Back to waze i went.

I hear Apple is pretty responsive about correcting reported errors. There's error reporting inside the app that includes a spot to attach a photo. Of course, this can be problematic when driving and I much prefer Waze's error reporting.

How do you do this for directions?

Re: Apple delivers a new redesigned Maps for users in the United States

#304

Post by 0xffff2 »

toomim wrote: post #42
ianwalter wrote: post #18

Ahhhh so sick of companies featuring San Fran. The whole point is that it has better coverage Nation-wide. Pick literally anywhere else in the country!

They did. The example map is from Abilene, TX.

I count 6 images in the link. 3 are SF, one is SJC, one is New York, and one is (presumably) Abilene.

Re: Apple delivers a new redesigned Maps for users in the United States

#305

Post by usaar333 »

pauljonas wrote: post #196

I'd been using Waze for a couple of years, and initially it was far superior to Apple Maps. But a few months back, I got really frustrated with it because it led me down some closed roads & ended up doubling my commute time home from work that day. I'd also been noting how off it was on its estimates on when I'd get to my destination. And I was also perturbed by it not knowing the back street entrance to my work site…

I personally use Waze over Google maps for navigation during commute times as it has the advantage of routing with HOV lanes. Does Apple maps support this? (I'm on Android)

Re: Apple delivers a new redesigned Maps for users in the United States

#306

Post by CPLX »

forty wrote: post #263
CPLX wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the idea of switching from Waze, which is increasingly frustrating and wrong. The problem is that having the speed traps and radar sites on there is just too crucial to give up. I've never found a replacement that does that.

Maybe it's a good opportunity for you to start following speed limits and stop risking everyone's life :)

Tempting.

Re: Apple delivers a new redesigned Maps for users in the United States

#307

Post by mumblemumble »

oflannabhra wrote: post #205
pauljonas wrote: post #196

I'd been using Waze for a couple of years, and initially it was far superior to Apple Maps. But a few months back, I got really frustrated with it because it led me down some closed roads & ended up doubling my commute time home from work that day. I'd also been noting how off it was on its estimates on when I'd get to my destination. And I was also perturbed by it not knowing the back street entrance to my work site…

I seem to remember someone posting their results of testing Google Maps, Apple Maps, and Waze for ETA accuracy, and what you describe was also what they found: Apple Maps was the most accurate, Google Maps was optimistic, but accurate, Waze basically reported the best case scenario. Edit: found the original [0] I've long thought that Waze creates the illusion of saving massive amounts of time, when its benefits are m…

I never really got into Waze; once I get to know my way around a city I'm inclined to just get around the oldschool way, sticking to arterial roads and all that.

I also used to work for a company where I occasionally visited an office where Waze was really popular with the folks who worked there. And found that that, when we were meeting up somewhere halfway across town after work, I would typically get there before the Waze users about as often as they got there before me. So, not really much of a time saver. Judging from my experiences on the occasions that someone gave me a ride somewhere, I was probably having a more pleasant, albeit lower-tech, driving experience, too.

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd imagine Waze has a law of large numbers problem: The sample size they have for estimating the travel time along any given stretch of side road is smaller, and there's also a lot more ways to route oneself on the side roads, and those two factors compound to mean a relatively high chance that at least one of the routes Waze considers has been assigned a grossly over-optimistic travel time estimate.

Re: Apple delivers a new redesigned Maps for users in the United States

#308

Post by kylebarron »

andrewljohnson wrote: post #288
kylebarron wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've thought for a while that your Gaia Topo layer could be improved, especially because until now I don't think you had any hillshade at all for a topo map! I spent some time checking out your map this morning, and it looks really nice at low zooms, but I'm still a little disappointed at high zooms. At zoom 13 the hillshading ends! For example, at zoom 14, I still much prefer a map with a hillshade (my own work): ht…

That's fair... we chose to drop the shading at that zoom, but we could be wrong. I think some people prefer a cleaner read when zoomed in so far (especially for field use), and shading also makes the tiles larger/slower to download. Gaia GPS does have a separate raster hill-shading layer from ESRI you could layer on top, and we've been considering making our own (we already have an elevation data pipeline and create…

That's true regarding file size. It is nice to have the option to overlay another hillshading layer.

I use Terrain RGB tiles that I [make myself](https://github.com/nst-guide/terrain#terrain-rgb), and having elevation data on the client opens up cool future possibilities like client-side viewshed analysis.

And thanks! The [style](https://github.com/nst-guide/osm-liberty-topo) and the rest of this project is open source. The style is a fork of osm-liberty, using the OpenMapTiles schema.

Re: Apple delivers a new redesigned Maps for users in the United States

#309

Post by 0xffff2 »

andrewljohnson wrote: post #294
0xffff2 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just downloaded the app. Can I not use it at all without an account? If so, why?

You should be able to use without an account. There is a Skip button in the top right corner of the opening screen, or the Register screen. Ping me at andrew@gaiagps.com if you can't find it.

Ah, yeah, my bad for not noticing the dark grey text on a black background.

Re: Apple delivers a new redesigned Maps for users in the United States

#310

Post by jschwartzi »

what_ever wrote: post #266
jschwartzi wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite feature of Google Maps is how it gets 10x slower when you turn location history off. And then it obnoxiously prompts you to turn it back on for an "improved user experience." I've duplicated this exact experience across several generations of smartphone including a relatively recent Galaxy S7. Turning location history back on makes the slowness go away.

I don't have this experience on Pixel 3. I also have location history off and have never gotten the prompt. Does that come up in a specific usecase? Disc: Googler but nowhere close to Maps.

Yeah, whenever my fiance or I try to search for a location, it takes maps several seconds to let us start typing. It only does this when we turn location history off. Honestly one of the things that drove me to stop using my G4 was this issue, because I had thought it was a performance issue with the phone. Then my fiance showed me how slow her S7 was with location history turned off versus on.

Regarding the prompt, it's always on in the search screen but starting a search makes it go away.

Post reply on HN