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Google Maps Hacks

simonweckert.com

391–397 of 397 posts

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of my point, it relies on the user setting something.

Not really a problem though. It's trivial to ask.

Might be true in a haply belief but I give you one first big critique:

It's NOT easy to time the release of such a feature.

In fact, since this is not easy, I see a big opportunity for a competitor to Waze.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can buy satnavs with that feature: https://www.tomtom.com/en_gb/sat-nav/truck-sat-nav/ and of course, many truck rental companies will also rent you such a sat nav.

Does it work 100% of the time? Is it mathematically disproven, that it won't fail on any occasion? Is it mathematically proven, that every bridge is always appearing in the dataset after it is possible to drive underneath it? Or over it?

No, having a sat nav doesn't obviate the need to be attentive to road signs and the size of your vehicle.

No map data supplier warrants that their data is free from errors, and even if they did the data could be out-of-date within hours as roads are being built all the time.

There is no proof - mathematical or otherwise - a sat nav won't switch off if you fail to plug it in. Neither is there any proof a bridge won't be closed due to roadworks, an accident, or other reasons.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#393
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my common complaint with Waze and most driving apps - they optimize for "least time," not "least anguish". I would almost always prefer to spend an extra 5 minutes on my "normal" route (that I have on auto-pilot) instead of saving that 5 minutes by taking confusingly-named side-streets with lots of left turns onto other busy side-streets. I don't know if Apple Maps really gets this any better to be honest.

I would love it if these apps gave an option for easiest drive. Both Apple and Google tell me to take a left turn by my house onto a busy road when its actually quicker to go the other way and just loop around. In fact, if they just had an “avoid unprotected left turns” option that’d be fantastic.

Waze has a feature called "Avoid difficult intersections" designed exactly for these situations. https://www.pcmag.com/news/waze-wants-to-help-you-avoid-diff...

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#394
post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of all the accidents I've driven past on my daily drives, all of them happened on roundabouts. In localities with few/no roundabouts, the vast majority of accidents still happen at intersections. Intersections of roads are the most prone to accidents (for fairly obvious reasons), with or without roundabouts. I believe there is research showing roundabouts are actually quite a bit safer in general, but it's possible…

Roundabouts are great for cars, and awful for just about everyone else. People, bikes, buses, trucks: all face difficulty or death in their presence.

You should copy the Dutch then. Their car+bike road designs are something else. Roundabouts included.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#395
post #350

Navigation apps have mostly settled into a comfortable state of "good enough" mediocrity. In addition to the "red but no traffic" problems highlighted by others I find turn by turn directions are incredibly annoying while driving in areas I'm intimately familiar with and there's no way to say "I know what I'm doing when I'm in this area" or "pause giving me voice directions for 10 minutes". Additionally: * I can't co…

" ... there's no way to say "I know what I'm doing when I'm in this area" or "pause giving me voice directions for 10 minutes"." Yes, this is a very obvious feature that one encounters almost immediately when adopting direction tools like this and, like you, I am quite surprised this isn't fixed. Related: an option, or even a default, to pause media playback for the duration of directions dictation, rather than just…

About pausing media playback versus fading down the audio, on iOS, this is controlled completely by the OS, but on Android, it's up to the media player. There's an audiobook player for Android called Smart Audiobook Player that does pause its playback when something else cuts in. For me, this usually happens when I do something that makes the TalkBack screen reader [1] speak while playing an audiobook.

[1]: I'm legally blind.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it work 100% of the time? Is it mathematically disproven, that it won't fail on any occasion? Is it mathematically proven, that every bridge is always appearing in the dataset after it is possible to drive underneath it? Or over it?

No, having a sat nav doesn't obviate the need to be attentive to road signs and the size of your vehicle. No map data supplier warrants that their data is free from errors, and even if they did the data could be out-of-date within hours as roads are being built all the time. There is no proof - mathematical or otherwise - a sat nav won't switch off if you fail to plug it in. Neither is there any proof a bridge won't…

How about drones?
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